Male Nude Photo Shoot: First Session with New Model Jeff

Jeff arriving at my apartment for the photo shoot

Through some online connections, I saw a picture of a very attractive guy named Jeff, who is originally from Hawaii but now lives in the Pacific Northwest. He was planning to be in Hawaii for a few days and I was able to contact him and asked him if he were interested in talking to me about modeling for me while he was here. A couple of weeks later, he showed up at my place and we had a nice talk and decided yeah, we could work together.

I’ve lived in my Waikiki apartment for only a little over a year, and haven’t really thought of it as a good location for a photo session. I usually prefer to do outdoors photo shoots but Jeff was only available on the weekend, which is not a good time to try to shoot nudes at any of the Oahu beaches I know. So I decided to try doing a photo shoot in my apartment. I’ve done one other photo shoot in the apartment, with Sam, and it worked out pretty well, so I thought it might be okay. Especially since I’ve gone plant-crazy in the last few months and I have lots more greenery to add to the visual interest and appeal of the place. So I had Jeff come over to my apartment the next afternoon.

First thing I did was get him into my bed! Not like that—you know what I mean. But it’s a great setting and actually the light in my bedroom at that time of day turned out to be terrific for this purpose. And Jeff DID look awesome in my bed, as you can see.

Next thing I did was move some of my bigger plants into the bedroom to add to the backdrop. This was the beginning of a LOT of plant-moving that went on during the photo shoot. I need to get planters with wheels in the future. Anyway, I think it added a lot to the backdrop—and it’ll be interesting to see how this works out when I start painting some of these images. (I always wanted to have plants to use in this way, but I used to have a black thumb—plants always died on me sooner or later. For some reason, as I’ve gotten older and more at peace with myself, plants like me more. They now grow in my environment. In fact, it turns out I have somewhat of a green thumb now! I love having that I now have LOTS of plants in my home, and they seem to be thriving! The fact that they work so well to add visual interest when I’m doing a photo shoot is an unexpected fringe benefit.)

My apartment has a back door that leads onto a fire escape which is actually kind of cool, with black-painted walls. So we moved one of the plants out there and I did some shots of Jeff with the plant in the background. This KIND of worked. The jury is still out, but I suspect some unexpected kind of painting will come out of these shots…we’ll see.

Next we went to my living room and I did a bunch of shots of Jeff there and that worked really well. I already knew Jeff was attractive but as I photographed him I liked him more and more. He looks good from just about every angle. His ethnic background is Caucasian-Mexican-Chamorro. Chamorro is the ethnicity native to Guam, and the look is similar to Filipino, and in my book, men of Filipino or part-Filipino ancestry are among the most attractive men on the planet. So I love Jeff’s look.

Several shots of Jeff in the late-afternoon light in the living room were really striking. I think there are many of these that could turn into paintings. Jeff’s brown body against the white of the carpet and the sofa, plus the green of the plants, and the drama of the late-afternoon sunlight—I think there are lots of possibilities here.

Several shots of Jeff in the late-afternoon light in the living room were really striking. I think there are many of these that could turn into paintings. Jeff’s brown body against the white of the carpet and the sofa, plus the green of the plants, and the drama of the late-afternoon sunlight—I think there are lots of possibilities here.

I also took advantage of my lanai and all the plants out there. Again, we were moving plants like crazy, trying to find the right arrangement to give a nice backdrop and work with the light. Jeff was super-helpful and cooperative and easy to work with. I am so grateful that I seem to attract great models to work with—not only beautiful to look at but easy-going, pleasant guys as well. Jeff definitely falls into this category.

All in all it was a great shoot. I had some trepidation about how well it would work to do the entire shoot in my apartment, but I was very pleased overall with the reesults. Best of all, Jeff and I had fun. My experience is that that’s almost a guarantee that the images that come out of the photo session will produce good art. When I find the model attractive AND enjoy working with him, then I’m a lot more inspired once I begin the actual drawing and painting. I’m looking forward to the art that comes out of this photo shoot.

Update: Now there’s a Jeff E-book!

In April 2013 I published an e-book called “Jeff” which contains almost 100 uncensored photographs from both of my photo shoots with Jeff. You can purchase it for instant download here.