Goddess Joey

Blue Goddess

I've been going to the Siuslaw Valley for a few years now, ever since Joey invited me down for a shoot. I was the first photographer to take her up on the offer, and I try to get down there at least once a year. The two of us have shot all over the valley and traveled to a few places outside the valley to shoot as well. Joey's charge is to find the locations while my responsibility lies with choosing the concept and bringing the costumes and props. 

I've been wanting to shoot a fall shoot in the valley and during our most recent shoot I had asked Joey to find us a new spot to shoot. So we set a date for early fall and I made the trip down earlier this week.

Sun Goddess

Joey had told me she had found a great new spot. True to her word, it made an excellent location for what I wanted to shoot. As a bonus, it wasn't far from her home. This time of year, before the rainy season has returned, the river runs shallow and warm so we managed to get some shots in the river as well. 

I had mentioned to Joey that I wanted to do a set of Celtic Goddess images with woad drawings on her face and body and she was excited to do something different like that. We also started later in the day that I normally shoot because I wanted to use the evening sun instead of morning light. That worked out well for us because the river ran to the west side of our location giving us light under the trees for the final part of our shoot. We didn't stop shooting until the light failed.

Celtic Warrior

Our shoot started without the woad designs though, since I wanted to shoot some unpainted goddess versions before she applied the hard-to-remove body paint. We began under the trees with sheer gowns and backlighting from the late afternoon sun. 

Despite being in a county park, the location stayed mostly deserted during our shoot. The first interruption occurred when a man and his dog came looking for a friend. We heard both of them long before they hiked up the trail to our spot. The guy accepted our word we hadn't seen his friend and off he went, pup in tow, back down the trail from whence he came.

Nude Goddess

Our second encounter didn't count as an interruption because no one came anywhere near us. A truck simply pulled into the area, a couple of guys jumped out, looked at the river, and left after just a few minutes. For the remainder of the shoot, no one bothered us. 

We shot for about 3 hours and got some great images. Joey looks great as a Celtic Goddess and warrior and she's much better at handling swords than 6 years ago during our first shoot. 

Mermaids and Bikinis

Home renovations took up most of my time for the remainder of June and all of July. My 2nd shoot of 2022 didn't happen until the early August when I managed to get away for a day long shoot with my friend and fellow artist, Joey. I traveled south to her lovely stomping grounds along the Siuslaw River and she proposed we shoot with her mermaid outfit. I agreed and we traveled to a lovely little spot where cascading water and deep, dark pools abounded. The trek from the small parking lot wasn't bad, but there was a steep set of steps that descended to the actual falls. Not good for my bad knee, but hey, you gotta go where you gotta go.

There was a small group of swimmers downstream, but they paid little attention to us as settled our bags on the rocks. I suggested we start with some bikini shots and as Joey changed I evaluated the location and the light. I determined the best place to start and very quickly we were shooting. Joey, as always, gave me some great poses and expressions and we even found an isolated area where she felt comfortable shooting some nudes. 

After about an hour of shooting bikinis and nudes, we walked back over to the base of the stairs and Joey donned the upper half of her outfit. The lower half was a realistic mermaid tail made of silicone and fabric. She took to the water with the tail, swam over to the opposite side of the pool, and donned her lower half. She moved carefully and her poses were lovely. She moved along the far side of the pool from log to rocky outcrop to mossy boulder with ease. After a while, she swam back to my side of the pool and took off her tail. 

We were, however, not completely done. I had noticed one of the young swimmers from downstream of us, move around the fish ladder and go over to the cascading falls and I thought Joey could do it as well. Knowing that it would make for some great shots, she agreed to give it a shot. You can see the results below.

Afterwards, we searched for a place to eat and eventually managed to find a small cafe where I grabbed a burger and some fries and Joey had a hot sandwich (a Philly cheesesteak if I recall correctly). With bellies full and our spirits fortified, we headed off for a few more hours of shooting. More wonderful poses at beautiful spots ensued and when the day was done we relaxed with a cold drink then said our goodbyes for the day. I can't think of a better way for a photographer to spend a day.  

A few more shots from the day:

2021

Joey in 2021

When summer break (and my freedom from school arrived) I was sure I'd be able to get out and do some glamour work, but if you read my last post you'll already know that the shoots I was able to accomplish were done before the summer break. No one was going anywhere that year - we were wearing cloth masks and gloves to go to the grocery stores to survey the sparsely stocked shelves and very limited and rationed supplies of toilet paper, paper towels, and sanitizer. Models adapted and remote shoots became a process. It was not a great summer. 

When the school 2020 -2021 school year the school district was far more prepared and the online school work was far more structured and interactive and we all became super proficient with Zoom meetings and submitting lessons online. Those lessons included written assignments, videos, photos and believe it or not, nature walks. The lessons were time consuming, starting at 8:30 am and finishing up usually after 5 pm. Of course, everyone was still social distancing and very few, if any, models were posing in person. In December, when vaccines became available, I hoped things would get back to normal, but the limited supply meant younger, healthy people (like models) were the lowest priority and so for modeling and glamour photography nothing changed. 

Bree Summer 2021

Fortunately, as 2020 segued into 2021 vaccines became more and more available and in the summer near the end of the school year, things were looking a lot better for glamour. I managed to get five shoots done in the summer of 2021 - examples of which you can see in this post. Only one of the shoots was with a new model, Cat, but three of my favorites came to my rescue with their willingness to shoot. 

Unfortunately, in the late summer, early fall, the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus became predominant and out of an abundance of caution, my family decided I would continue to coach my granddaughters until at least Christmas, and then until Spring Break, and then, ah, heck, just finish the school year. Now, I won't say things are back to normal by any means. Vaccines and boosters are readily available to those who need and want them, and while I try to be apolitical in my blogging, the anti-vax idiots are keeping the virus dangerous with by incubating new mutations of the virus in their bodies, and yes, continuing to fill up hospital beds and morgues. 2022 is looking a lot better, though and I've been shooting pretty steadily for the past few weeks. More about that in my next post.

Cat

Joey in September

Floofie (Kira) in her Studio

Fanny Fridays!

I used to do a feature on Tumblr called Fanny Friday. Most Fridays I would post several images of lovely models in poses featuring their lovely assets. Of course, with the new rules, posting on Tumblr or any art that shows female skin, just about guarantees you'll get an auto notification that your image violates their standards, then you have to appeal, then you have to wait for a real person to review the appeal, so screw that.  I'll start posting them here.

Joey Darke at Leisure Land