Archive for the ‘Photo Stories’ Category
SMOOTH HOTEL has closed after all
No sooner did we officially extend the show through August, than the space at 69 Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District of New York was closed. Charlie the manager was distraught, as was most of the staff.
A tearful Countess Mara, neighborhood celebrity and one of the stars of the show, expressed her gratitude to “the multitude of people who have stopped by to see the show and offered such wonderful support,” and to the staff at the famed diner for their enthusiasm in making whole experience so much fun for everyone.
The show will go on however. Season Two of the acclaimed SMOOTH HOTEL fashion/art soap opera photo series begins shooting this fall with an expanded cast of actors, models and wonderful clothes from Tom and Linda Platt.
SMOOTH HOTEL show held over for the summer
The show will now run through August 22, at 69 Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District, NYC.
Actually we never got around to taking it down. Charlie, the manager says he likes having the work on the walls and the customers seem to be enjoying the show, so we’re officially holding it over.
Countess Mara, who appears in many of the shots, has become a neighborhood celebrity. She was recently asked to pose next to the print of her and her bodyguard for snapshots with a bunch of Saks Fifth Avenue execs. They were apparently participating in a scavenger hunt.
The Chatroulette shot of Superbabe Supermodel Shannon was the favorite of the waitresses, but unfortunately it got censored when somebody complained about all the blood. I’ve replaced it with a bloodless version.
And as a final piece of big news – we were featured recently on a Korean reality tv show talking about the show and explaining to the viewers what tater tots are.
Another Christmas is upon us!
I swore I was going to post loads of interesting stuff to this blog, and have to say I’m amazed at how fast the year went by, and how little I posted….
But this coming year will be vastly different. I have cool stuff planned starting around Valentine’s Day – hopeless romantic that I am. Please come back and visit then. In the meantime HAPPY HOLIDAYS to everyone!
Much love, Barbara
Thanks to David Menkes
David Samuel Menkes is well known for his fabulous creations for leathermen, and for his signature leather straightjacket. But he also makes amazing clothes for women. I adore this birdcage skirt, and so did Sigail. We had a blast with it. Thanks, David!
Sully’s Bed
My friend, Sully Walsh, invited me out to his loft-to-die-for in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago, and I spent a day taking pictures of the lovely Sigail Currie for my fashion portfolio.
The centerpiece of the shoot was Sully’s hand-built metal bed, which is an amazing piece of functional artwork. First, it’s an ingenious bondage bed because you can use it to tie somebody up a million different ways. But it’s also a very elegant piece of sculpture, and I’m sure a lot of people would be happy just to live with it and sleep in it every night.
Sully makes all kinds of custom metal furniture, and also little specialty items. He happened to have a pair of small hand-tooled custom handcuffs on hand and let us use them too. I thought they made wonderful accessories to one of the evening gowns that our stylist Tanya had pulled for the day.
Gentleman that he is, Sully even sacrificed a piece out of his tee shirt collection so Tanya could make a feather hat out of it.
Of course, most of the credit for the overall beauty of the shoot goes to our amazing glam team – from left to right, Andrea Wilson genius hair stylist, Khush Singh brilliant makeup artist, our model Sigail, and Tanya Seeman stylist to the stars!
Fish Hook Shoot
I met the fabulous D, aka Missy Po, through Vivian at the Sex Carnival. She lives in Washington DC and has been incredibly gracious about taking the Chinatown bus up to New York for my Polysexual photo shoots. She’s a dream to photograph – sexy and beautiful in a totally non-standard way. She has become one of my official muses, and actually as I write this I realize we’re due for another shoot. I miss her!
For one of our adventures, she brought her new gold fish hook and asked me to do a pinup style shot of her wearing it through her lip. I don’t usually do pinup style pictures because I’ve more than been there, but this one was a blast.
Her friend Sam asked to use it for the 2009 CD sampler of his Projekt record label. I loved the way he manipulated my image and turned it into something magic! The music is fabulous also, and you can buy the CD practically for free here.
Merry Christmas
Do you hear what I hear?
My Friend Mara and I have been creating a Christmas card together for many years. We collaborate on the theme, and Mara acts it out for me to photograph. Usually the ideas bubble up out of Mara’s highly entertaining unconscious, but this year we got our inspiration from a popular political figure - guess who!
Unfortunately we can’t divulge the identity of the dead body, although many people have expressed their theories as to who it might be.
New York Tyrant Cover Shoot
A few months ago, Chris March (brilliant designer from Project Runway Season 4) sent me a note asking if I’d be interested in doing a cover shoot of him for a literary magazine, New York Tyrant. I suggested a trade – I would do the cover shot if he’d come back to my place and do a quick portrait for me.
Chris put me in touch with Tyrant’s editor, GianCarlo Di Trapano, and we set up a date. As soon as I heard his concept I knew it would be a total blast. He wanted to have Chris in a bear suit sitting on the steps of the New York Public Library. How did he know that I’m a huge bear fan? The human kind, of course!
We did the library shots with GianCarlo lurking in the background wearing a fabulous pig mask. Then we went back to my place where Chris agreed to put the bear suit back on, and GianCarlo volunteered to take off his suit and put on the bear head. This was one of those days when I just love my life!!!
WHAT’S WITH CALIFORNIA?
I felt so proud to be an American on the night of November 5th when we elected Barack Obama as our president.
And so ashamed the next day when California voters outlawed same-sex marriage. In the wake of such an enormous step forward for our country and the world, that step backward for gay people seemed all the more small-minded, petty, and spiteful.
Do people really think that the love between beautiful people like my friends Matt and Angelo is going to hurt them somehow? I just don’t get it.
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THANKS TO THE SEX CARNIVAL
What fabulous friends I have!
I had been trying to carve out some time to figure out how to use this blog when along came my friend Viviane. She’s a famous sex blogger - www.thesexcarnival.com – and she offered to help me get this thing started.
She gave me all kinds of tips, installed my rss feedburner feed, added some other stuff – and now I’m trying to see if I can understand my notes. YIKES! This is not as easy as it looks.
But in the meantime, I thought I’d post a carnivalesque image in Viviane’s honor. It’s from Dark Odyssey’s Summer Camp, an event that Viviane and I both love. I took the picture on a beautiful balmy night around midnight, when everybody was down at the bonfire, beating drums and dancing and spinning fire pois.
