This is a shot from the sweet 16th set of Rachel Face ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
forrestblack and I have shot for the Blue Blood VIP. I love how uber-punk Rachel comes across in this series and the swanky boutique hotel we shot these at was so amazingly cool. Despite the fact that people from neighboring hotels complained about Rachel’s appearance, our hotel was still down for sending someone to get me an iced latte when my energy started to flag. Oi oi, now that is service.
Senior Blue Blood writer Will Judy calls Forrest Black’s shotgun “the luckiest shotgun in the world”. What can I say about beautiful Dana Dark that I haven’t said before?
This is a sample shot from the 15th set of Rachel Face forrestblack and I shot which has been published in the Blue Blood VIP. We shot this at a nighttime hotspot called The Jockey Club. We had to wait until after the bar closed and, when we got there at like 4am, there were still some, err, patrons using the bar. They were kind enough to more or less vacate for a while, so we could shoot.
Molly Winters posted to Blue Blood VIP in a set by your truly and Forrest Black called Happy Halloween.
Blue Blood VIP updates are usually scheduled a long time in advance because it would be a heck of a lot more difficult to organize scrambling to post a varied update every day on the actual day. So today’s Fetus de Milo shoot by yours truly and forrestblack was set to post on October 21 quite some time ago. Oddly enough, my LJ birthday reminder popped up today to tell me that it is Fetus de Milo’s birthday. What an odd little bit of synchronicity.
by Amelia G : October 17th, 2009
It seems like it should be unnecessary to point out that models are human beings, but a lot of people seem to have difficulty with this. Nobody is as beautiful as their best photo or as hideous as their worst. Ugly may go to the bone, but beauty is still only skin deep. All true.
The nature of digital interaction makes the relationship of humans with their images more difficult. Once upon a time, my unsavory pals and I could hang out at our punk rock group house and, if someone said a model in some of the trannie porn in our living was not feminine enough, nobody’s feelings were going to get hurt.
Today, a lot of people seem to be polarized in their responses to imagery, in particular in their responses to sexual imagery. On the one hand, there are people who callously and casually critique a model’s weight or body parts in public, even though the human being in those photos is going to see those comments. On the other hand, there are people who, on some deep lizard brain level, feel that, if they have seen someone’s hoo-ha, even someone who was paid to show it to them, that person is practically their mate.
It does not make you respectful and/or feminist, if you pathetically slavishly agree with everything someone ever says or posts because you have seen naked pictures or video of them, especially members of your gender of preference.
It does not make you intelligent/ and/or nonconformist, if you aggressively criticize all erotic media and the people who appear in it, especially members of . . .
( Read more )
forrestblack and I always like to photograph smiles. Sometimes I find that certain sorts of models will apologize for smiling. Happily Jax makes no apologies for her grin. We’ve shot a lot of kind of refined-looking smiles on Jax, but this one is particularly delightfully possessed-looking I think. The whole set this shot is from posted to the Blue Blood VIP today.
forrestblack and I often come up with shoot ideas to justify goofy fun purchases. In this case, we were very amused by the idea of latex bondage tape, which is basically brightly colored Saran Wrap for people. So we figured red hair on Yolanda and red hair on Szandora meant they would color coordinate nicely with red bondage tape. Szandora’s flexibility and double-jointed limbs are always a plus for bondage, and her topping from the bottom — harder, harder, tighter, tighter — is always entertaining.
Tech tip: Yolanda dyed her hair a slightly different shade of red right before the shoot, but a bit of playing with the hue function in Photoshop keeps it all looking relatively of a piece.
Full series in the Blue Blood VIP.
It is a glowing testament to the awesomeness of Jiz Lee and Syd Blakovich that this shoot turned out great. I hope to photograph them both again soon.
The prep for this was pretty much cursed.
Syd is a bit of a gladiator, so my initial concept was to put the two of them in armor with swords. A guy I’d done a lot of favors for in the past, and gotten armor from in the past, told me that he completely had stuff that would be perfect for the dancer body types I described to him. It turned out that the only stuff he had was some embarrassingly awful half-assed stuff he had made for Britney Spears’ back-up dancers . . . which the Britney Spears people had hated so much they stopped working with the guy. There was no way I was putting Syd or Jiz in those defective outfits, but it had been a couple years since I last got armor from this particular source and I don’t think he’d cleaned his studio in the intervening time. He was hyperventilating about something or other and so I looked through the armor myself and had an allergic reaction to the filth. It was all sort of tragic and I was going to just get a couple pieces and see if I could put something together with some mismatched stuff and then the guy all of a sudden wants a totally ridiculous price and gets really aggro and tells me he is having a very bad day. I try not to take my bad days out on other people, so that hurt my feelings, especially as I was kinda pulling stuff at this point to be polite. So I decided to skip the whole mess.
Then part of the camera broke when I took it out of the bag at the location.
All of which I would have taken as a bad omen and called it a day under many circumstances, but I was really excited to shoot Syd Blakovich and Jiz Lee and we met for coffee beforehand and I just felt like we were creatively on the same page. And, of course, there is the part where they are both ridiculously gorgeous. So forrestblack and I still did the shoot. As an artist, I could fret about this or that which is marginally different from whatever, but everything turned out really terrific. Sometimes what a shoot seems like it will be in the prep stage evolves into something different yet excellent as various factors play out and as part of the collaborative process of shooting.
This is a shot from the first set of Jiz Lee and Syd Blakovich for the Blue Blood VIP. You can check out this free Jiz Lee and Syd Blakovich gallery. More updates of them to come, plus a video interview about their Twincest art project.
Today’s Blue Blood VIP update is a series Forrest Black and I shot of Rachel Face at the Jockey Club. I feel like it really gives a sense of what it is like to drink with Rachel. Fun and dangerous and don’t ever forget that that tummy tattoo reads, “Hell hath no fury like a woman who will blow out your brains.” And the legend on her panties says, “If you can read this, I must be drunk.” We actually weren’t drunk that night, but she still looked awesome brandishing a Pabst in those undies.
The devil girl series forrestblack and I shot with Dana Dark was the first we did in this style and probably still my favorite, although I’m happy with them all. This specific image ran in Marquis as a full page. Whole set and all the series is in the Blue Blood VIP and BarelyEvil
by Amelia G : September 27th, 2009
Blasphemy Day is a new internet-spawned holiday like Talk Like a Pirate Day or CAPS LOCK DAY. I’m not surprised that more people added typing like a pirate to their holiday calendars than typing in all capital letters, but I would have thought more people would have gotten into Blasphemy Day.
Blasphemy Day is set for September 30, as a tip of the hat to the riots caused when a Danish newspaper ran a cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to the anonymously-run Blasphemy Day web site, “International Blasphemy Day is not just a day. It is a movement to dismantle the wall which exists between religion and criticism . . . The objective of International Blasphemy Day is to open up all religious beliefs to the same level of free inquiry, discussion and criticism to which all other areas of academic interest are subjected.” Noble aspiration, although I’m not sure a mean-spirited cartoon really advances human knowledge. Slaying sacred cows can be humorous (Heck, even the existence of the idiomatic expression sacred cow is pretty funny), but I have yet to hear anyone explain what the joke was in the Danish Muhammad cartoon, except maybe that it would piss people off.
I used to feel like each person’s individual relationship with their deity or deities or lack thereof was . . .
( Read more )
Work forrestblack and I created with the beautiful Dana Dark is on Yuhmm today!
We are looking for two more part time graphics people in the Los Angeles area. These are not on-site positions, but candidates who can conveniently attend in-person meetings in Hollywood, California are strongly preferred. You must have an internet connection, your own workstation with Photoshop, and your computer must be able to read compact flash cards or smart cards from cameras or USB hard drives. You will use company-provided compact flash media, smart cards, and/or USB hard drives.
Entry Level Graphics Production
Publication or Company: Blue Blood
Industry: Photography, Magazine Publishing, Newsletters, Online/New Media
Benefits: permissive dress code, flex time, mostly telecommuting, guest list, swag
Job Duration: Part Time
Job Location: Los Angeles, CA USA
Job Requirements:
Blue Blood, the OG trade mag of cool, has an exciting opportunity for an intelligent, computer-savvy individual with artistic aesthetics. Blue Blood’s company culture has exacting standards for quality and performance and is perfect for the individual who enjoys excelling. Workdays regularly start at noon and the dress code allows and even encourages creative hairstyles and modes of dress. Any on-site production will be from a working location in the vibrant heart of Hollywood, walking distance from coffeehouses and restaurants.
Graphics staff is primarily responsible for processing photographs for both web and print publications. The successful applicant will have comprehension of gothic, punk, body modification, and similar aesthetic sensibilities, as well as a good sense of human proportions. The position requires an individual who is comfortable with adult material without possessing a crude sensibility.
This position requires proficiency in Photoshop for both web sized and gallery print level touch-ups, including standard tools such as clone, sharpen, blur, layers, formats, liquefy, and cropping. Moderate retouching portfolio preferred, but a test can be provided to substitute for portfolio. Web layout skills, including banner design and slicing graphics and animations/mouseovers in Imageready, a plus. Film scanning, Flash, FTP and basic HTML skills also a plus but not required. Ability to use AIM or ICQ or other instant messenger a plus. Use of AIM or ICQ required; training available.
Although Photoshop skills and artistic aptitude are musts, prior professional experience is not required. Some training available for the right applicant. Flexibility of hours lends itself to scheduling around a college class schedule.
About Our Company: Blue Blood is a lifestyle content production, packaging, and publishing company founded by Amelia G in 1992. Blue Blood began as a pioneering magazine dedicated to showcasing the beauty, sensuality, and coolness of the emerging eclectic underground populated by gothic, punk, fandom, and pre-internet cyberculture. The magazine quickly rose to the largest circulation in its niche. In addition to sponsoring numerous successful events, Blue Blood very successfully transitioned to the web. Both the print and digital incarnations of Blue Blood have received press in diverse venues, ranging from HBO and FOX to MTV and Playboy to Penthouse and Marquis to the New York Times and the Hong Kong Sun. Among Blue Blood’s various enterprises are a variety of entertainment publications in both print and digital media, innovation in content-packaging, and the SpookyCash affiliate program, as well as the Blue Blood Boutique, which purveys a signature line of apparel and accessories. Blue Blood continues to set industry standards for innovation and quality.
Contact: Blue Blood
Email Address submit@blueblood.net
8033 Sunset Blvd #4500
West Hollywood CA 90046 USA
Special Instructions: A formal resume is not required, but a skills inventory and pertinent background, including any relevant hobbies, is. A basic Photoshop test will be given to applicants who pass the initial round of selection. Candidates who successfully complete the test will be invited to interview for the position.
by Amelia G : July 28th, 2009
So I registered the domain for my name a while back, when the internet still had a bit of that new web smell. I’d been doing work more and more in the digital space for a few years then and I would end up having to pay off a cybersquatter for the BlueBlood.com domain, so it seemed sensible to register everything near and dear to me. Then nine more years went by. Some of my favorite sites have grown out of Forrest Black registering domains while drinking beer and then me feeling that, once it was registered, the domain had to have a site on it. For a long time, I just had a link to a hosted journal on AmeliaG.com, but now seemed like the time to actually put a proper site on there. Today it officially goes live.
The site has the Amelia G bio with just the broad strokes. There is a more detailed sidebar with just 2009 news about press appearances and where my writing and photography has appeared this year. I considered including a page with a gigantic lists of places I’ve been published, but, after doing thousands of pages of editorial, not to mention radio and television stuff, it just seemed like it would be a bit of a laundry list. Plus, oddly enough, when I was doing research for the site, I discovered that some of my work had been reprinted without me even knowing it. I’ve moved less as an adult than I did as a kid, but sometimes it is still possible to lose track of compatriots with moves and all on everyone’s part.
I hope people enjoy the Photography Portfolio section of Forrest Black’s and my work. People always ask to see my online portfolio and I always was reluctant to put one together before. When I say “reluctant”, I mean that the notion of editing together only forty of my favorite images, out of everything we’ve ever shot, made me effing hyperventilate. I forced my brain through its discomfort and editing a selection of images from over such a long time period turned out to be really . . .
( Read more )