'We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work'
Thomas A. Edison
Being able to feature these image of 22 year old Joey Conti wasn't an opportunity I was going to miss. When I first contacted Alain, the photographer behind studioAtruong, and these shots of Joey, he was also on board with featuring Joey as the model to feature his amazing work.
Alain's focus is on shooting the male nude, and believes the male body is more beautiful than anything else we could possibly drape on it. Although I whole heartedly agree, I love this set of images with the overalls draping over Joey's beautiful body. Alain has captured so many different looks with just the one piece of clothing Joey that was almost wearing.
I always say that choosing a final 10 or 15 images for a feature is usually the difficult task when putting something together for FH. With Alain's work with Joey, there were almost 600 incredible shots to choose from! Overwhelming yes, especially since almost every image he shot of Joey weas close to perfect. I was only able to choose, when I finally began separating them into looks and themes. For some reason, the images with Joey, in and out of the overalls, became the ones I wanted to begin with. Don't worry though, there are many more images with other looks and themes Alain has welcomed me to share, so look for more of them soon!
Alain says his goal is to keep challenging himself with more creative and beautiful photos, pushing limits, challenging the status quo, and to never stop learning and improving as a photographer. The San Francisco photographer has been shooting portraits for almost 3 years and says he is loving every minute that he gets time to shoot. Alain, like many artists, began with landscape work but soon became bored with the lack of life, or maybe other lives, involved in creating landscape images.
With a B.S. in Physics and an M.B.A. in Finance, Alain says photography is his way of seeing and thinking creatively and a great balance for the analytical work he does for a living: From early on in his childhood, Alain was influenced by the art works that his architect father always had around the house. He has always paid attention to people's facial features and could often be found drawing them in pencil or charcoal.
'Needless to say, when I discovered my first DSLR (a Canon), I was besides myself with joy to realize I could wield the apparatus to capture portraits of people. Though I find taking nude portraits of fit, young male models absolutely thrilling, I derive the greatest pleasure from taking pictures of a beautiful face!'
Although he doesn't do photography for a living, Alain says that he takes it very seriously and considers himself a perfectionist. Alain says he spends much of his spare time reading up every possible technique that he can learn. 'I want to show up to a photo shoot prepared, do everything right in the camera, and try to spend as little time as possible fixing problems in post-processing.' Professionalism and mutual respect are very important to him within his work and relationships with the models he shoots.
'Joey is blessed with a face can turn heads in a room full of a young, hot models.'
Last year, while attending a model boot camp as a photographer, Alain's eyes were immediately fixated on a young, just 20 at the time, chiseled, green-eyed model. After shooting him and other models as part of their training, Alain shared with Joey the head shots he taken of him and handed the new model his contact card. Joey was so happy with the head shots he wanted to continue working with Alain in a one-on-one shoot. Alain says the shoot that followed was one of the best he has had to date.
'Joey had the facial bone structure and body that many men would kill to have. He also possessed a model's instinct to move and pose in ways that best showcase him with minimum directions - although, in all fairness, I'd say it would be hard to find a bad angle on Joey. It would be difficult to have to choose Joey's best features since he was (and still is - I assume) all around perfect: Beautiful green eyes, chiseled cheek bones, sexy lips, perfectly defined pecs, biceps, triceps, round shoulders, and cut, eight-pack (yes, I counted) abdominals.'
'And...if I must, I have to say he also has the best bubble butt I have ever seen. Post processing his photos was the easiest thing to do: A little clean-up here and there, and some croppings. Absolutely NO enhancements (Photoshop) were necessary to improve on his cut and perfect body or face. Joey was simply a dream male model! For an amateur (yes, I do have a regular day job in the corporate world) yet very serious photographer, I consider myself very fortunate to have had the chance to shoot him.'
