'I see myself as more of a performance artist than just a model, it is about embodying an emotion and expressing it with the canvas of your flesh.'
The road to success in any industry requires making choices. When we start out, most of vow not to compromise and to stick with our values and our beliefs. If your profession is related in any way to the arts, those choices, the ones we all must make, seem to come quicker, harder and are very often much tougher. There are many reasons for this, but the bottom line is when the choice is between art, and being able to pay your rent, art becomes something many are forced to sacrifice.
Below: Craig by Anthony James
For most, the arts are not as strongly linked to financial security as other professions can be, therefore compromise and tough choices are that much more inclined to rear their ugly heads on a regular basis. Art is subjective and art should be, when done properly, also deeply personal. We all know however, especially by all the blue boy and pinkie knock offs on our grandparents walls, that when something in the art world sells, it is reproduced to the point anything actually unique or creative has had the life sucked out of it.
Below: Craig by Lucas Ferrier
It is a common assumption by most, that photographers who shoot models naked, especially if that model is a man, are doing it solely to provide the viewer with sexual gratification. I used to think this myself, we are pretty much taught this. Growing up, most of us only saw the naked form in adult magazines and other places we were told we shouldn't be looking. Nudity on American television was, and still is still handled about as well as it was in the days of the Puritans. A brief flash of a woman's nipple still gets more outcry from many that the hours upon hours of human beings being slashed, rapped, beaten and murdered each and every evening in all the 'tv procedural dramas...'
Working on FH, I have been fortunate to find photographers and models looking to do more than just give someone a quick thrill. There is really no skill in that, anyone with a camera can take a naked photo, even of themselves. The net is full of them. Those are not the images, or the artists I usually choose to focus on with the blog. Some might be hot, but there is relatively little about them that is unique.
I look for images that hit my sexual senses of course, equally as important are the visual senses, the colors, light and shadow, lines and shapes. The thing I look for most however is an image able to hit me on an emotional level. So many of the artists I have profiled have hit pieces of my being, sometimes ones I did not remember or know where there until the image sparked something in me. Yesterday's images from Indulis are a beautiful example of this.
'I am not completely sure where this journey is heading, I just know it is taking me somewhere great, somewhere I belong, and where I was born to go. I know I haven't worked this hard for nothing; there are great dreams to be realised.'
For male models, maneuvering that road can be treacherous. Although many look towards a professional career, maybe in fashion, many are met by others simply wanting to get their pants off. If the pants do come down, many models find themselves then limited and struggle harder to find representation and other forms of work.
Craig by MiamiPhotoGuy
I have always respected those models who make their choices, not just about nudity, but about any assignment or job, based on the creative element more than the commercial. I know realistically this is not always possible to do , but when the focus is the process, the resulting images are generally much stronger and more memorable.
Craig says his struggle is trying to find his place in the industry where he can be both artistically free and satisfied, as well as commercially lucrative. The response to his work has been great and Craig is becoming more and more confident in sticking to his guns and collaborating with photographers who view their work as art and the product something timeless and emotion-evoking. In remaining more independent and self-sufficient, Craig believes that the right project will come along to take his career to the next level instead of relying solely on commercial agency representation. It is hard to go against the norm of an industry, but when one does, the results, as you can clearly see these images of Craig, stand out.
Below: Craig from his work with artist Miguel Angel Reyes
'I want to make a difference and stand out a bit, I do not have an interest in just playing the roll of living mannequin for some underwear designer, not so way that I won't do that sort of work, but for me, it is about so much more. It is about being an artist.'
