The Stark-Arts

Danahh

2012-01-23T00:04:00.000-05:00

Danahh is a model i've shot recently that I got back in front of my lens. If you follow you will see she was part of the Vixen Combat shoot a few weeks ago and based off that experience she asked me to shoot some stills for her music. I was happy to as she was a blast the first time we shot. Here are a few of the images -

A New Year

2012-01-06T10:27:00.001-05:00

Looking forward to a year of incredible experiences and amazing photos. I can't wait to shoot whomever gets in my way...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W 36th St,New York,United States

Vixen Combat II

2012-01-01T17:46:00.002-05:00

More shots of Danahh and Fatimah for the coming soon Vixen Combat League. Fun shoot with some super cool ladies. Support it when you see it. Should be a blast.

Vixen Combat

2011-12-31T14:30:00.001-05:00

I shot some promo stuff for a new women's fighting league that is going to make it's debut in 2012 called Vixen Combat. I think it's going to be big....click on the title to go to the Facebook page....

Driving

2011-12-09T18:48:00.001-05:00

i drove about 2500 miles this past Sunday through Wednesday. NYC to Ft. Lauderdale in 16 hrs flat. Then some cross-Florida adventures that brought me back to Jacksonville. During all that I managed to make a stop just south of Tampa to hook back up with AnnaMariaLove. I'd met and shot her earlier in the year and we had made plans to do it again when I headed back. Here are the results. Amongst other things this made the trip worth it...

A First Time For Everything

2011-12-03T17:24:00.001-05:00

I'd never tied a man. Not for real. Certainly never to this extent. I hadn't had butterflies in a while. Wasn't really sure if my tactics to build rapport would work the same with a man as with a woman. I've often said I could teach my lighting to anyone in 4 hrs. But the ability to get someone comfortable in bondage in public or even not in public was something i could explain perhaps but I don't think i could teach it. Rarebreed (fetlife name) contacted me after seeing me tie at a party. His question was simple. "how do you feel about tying men?" - I answered quickly - "sounds like a good idea to me" and it was and is. I was still uncertain how it would go. He was pretty new to bondage...a total virgin when it came to suspension, but I'd seen some stills and he was a performance artist and in far better shape than me or many of the models i've shot for that matter. I knew I could do great stuff - the question was would i push him too far due to his maleness? I take it pretty easy on women. At least at first. Rarebreed left the shoot asking for more and that to me is a successful shoot.

Smart and Hot

2011-11-29T08:42:00.001-05:00

spending the day with a gorgeous model can be fun, it can be tedious, it can be a chance to create beauty and it can be a day to begin to study the teachings of the buddha. I have been very lucky lately. Smart, gorgeous, funny, sexy women have been in front of my lens as a rule rather than exception as of late... Thanks

The Fine Art Of Selling Out - Fuck All Y'All

2011-11-29T07:15:00.001-05:00

Fuck All Y'all

Well that about sums it up when you choose to be an artist doesn't it? I'm not talking about a producer. A producer is first interested in what will sell. They are first interested in what can be promoted, packaged, pushed, repackaged, and profited from. I'm not a communist. I'm not saying this is bad by nature. I'm merely pointing out the differences between artists and producers. An artist must by his nature produce what he loves and hope that the people that love that work happen to have money enough to purchase it. If you go into a painting or a photo shoot or a sculpture saying "I'm creating this for..." then that work is not going to be art. It is very similar to the distinction in my mind to the proverbial "selling out" that you hear of so often in the indi music scene. When a band changes it's sound in order to become popular (almost impossible to prove by the way" that is selling out. If the popular consciousness takes a turn and the music comes into vogue that is most certainly not selling out. When someone says selling out they usually mean "there are a whole bunch of kids here that thought i was a dork when i first liked you" - the other arts are the same way to me. I hope that fetish will continue to creep into the mainstream. It won't. But I hope. I hope that someone else looks at my work and says "we'd like to use that shot that has been laying around for months for our magazine cover or center fold or buy it for the lobby etc" because there is a sense of pride in that for me. I'd be lying to myself and you if i said otherwise. But until then - the people that love my work i give you the biggest X's and O's and the rest of you...the pictures have and will continue to do the talking for me....

Ukrainian Beauty Vs Street Bondage

2011-11-24T07:16:00.001-05:00

I got the opportunity to judge at a bondage event in NYC last Saturday. It was a good time but like most events the really great part for me was the people that I got to meet. Saw some old friends. Met some new ones. One of the new ones was a lovely young lady from the wilds of New England that was down for her first party experience. You would never know it from her bravery. She walked up to myself and David Lawrence (two big guys with bags full of rope) and started talking and looking through David's excellent book ReBound and then checking out mine. She was really excited by it. She mentioned that she'd been tied up one other time and liked it. I took that as my cue and took her over to the suspension rack. After a short time you could tell she was something special with the rope. No complaining, super flexible, and she got that "look" - the rope people know what i'm talking about. Long story short we exchanged info and I told her I'd love to get her in front of my camera. She was into the idea - unfortunately she was headed back home on Monday afternoon and I was unable to shoot on Sunday so that left me able to shoot during a very small window in the morning during my lunch break from my "real" job. She showed up...I tied her in the street. I hung her up. The rest is for you to see....

The lovely rope is from the fine folks at MauiKink - if you see colored rope in my images you know it's from Maui.

Gasmask Beauty

2011-11-23T07:33:00.000-05:00

Heavenly Bawdy II

2011-11-21T07:39:00.000-05:00

I'm not a real urban explorer. I'm too freaking big and too old and I've already had a near death experience. I don't carry a gas mask that's not meant to look cool on a model, I don't wear hiking or work boots. I don't wear goggles or anti-tear pants. I don't hide in the shadows etc. You won't find me dropping into any really tight spots - I'm too big. You won't find me carrying spelunking gear.

What I am is a guy that thinks the juxtaposition of gorgeous women and derelict buildings makes both look more beautiful. Neither belongs where they are. The building shouldn't be there cradling a woman. Most of the time the building wouldn't have been terribly safe when it was fully operational. The woman is generally nude or bound in my work and no hard hat or safety gear so she probably doesn't truly "belong" there either...but the two together are like ice cream and warm brownies....

So I'm not sure if HB is the brownie or the ice cream but I do know that I think she looks awesome and the location looks awesome. Two stars i could have shot by themselves to get great images but to me they look even better together....

Kris18 - Part 3: The Suspensions

2011-11-21T00:41:00.000-05:00

First time suspensions can be tricky...Everyone thinks it looks cool but it's totally a different animal than other rope work. Kris proved to be a champ enduring the new sensations, the cold, and the ghostly sounds that surrounded us...

Every Now And Then....Heavenly Bawdy pt 1

2011-11-21T00:26:00.000-05:00

Every now and then you get on a run. Athletes call it being in the zone. For me it simply means that I've been blessed with great models for a couple of weeks in a row and I've managed to get them to go places that they should be scared of. The roll continued over the weekend with another relatively inexperienced but amazing model. A rope virgin she took to it amazingly well. An urbanex virgin she was brave and bold. Without further ado I bring you Heavenly Bawdy....

I had an amazing shoot with her and I'm going to spread out my posts - I hope you don't get tired of her because she'll be gracing this for the next week or so...

Kris18 - Iphone Shots

2011-11-14T08:05:00.004-05:00

Part of the Iphone Series of shots I've been working on during proper shoots...

Kris18 rocks and you should check her out if you need a brave model with a killer attitude and an even better body...

Ghosts Instead Of Girls

2011-11-13T15:28:00.002-05:00

so the word on the street so to speak is that ghosts roam these halls - i was there during the day and as well all know magic doesn't work well during the day so that probably explains it but i will tell you that this place would be uber-creepy at night...About an hour north of NYC I loved the place.

Haunted Houses With Kris18

2011-11-13T11:51:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine saw a location on Travel Channel that he thought would be right up my alley...I checked it out and had my doubts. There were no great pics even on the sites of urbex guys that i respected. I was a bit nervous that I'd be giving up a day and a model to something that would underwhelm. W R O N G. I found a location that I will certainly continue to mine as long as possible. After exploring only two buildings out of MANY I found some amazing locations and hope you enjoy....

Yoko France - Part 3

2011-11-11T18:18:00.001-05:00

Yoko France Take II

2011-11-10T21:19:00.000-05:00

A second dose of Yoko France - you can probably tell I enjoyed shooting her and hope to get her in front of my camera again sooner rather than later

Yoko France Bound In Chicago

2011-11-10T08:10:00.000-05:00

New model - no rope experience. No nude experience. No outdoor in public experience. This could be the recipe for disaster but not so with Ms France. She was amazing and proved a trooper as the temps dropped and then again as the bondage got tighter....

Anna Maria Rope Bound in Tampa Florida

2011-11-04T07:32:00.001-04:00

Youth of Today Brooklyn 2011 w Mouthpiece and The Last Stand

2011-10-23T15:51:00.005-04:00

the last stand

Mouthpiece

Video of Youth Of Today Performing Disengage, Modern Love Story, and Envy in Brooklyn. Great show. above are pics of YOT, The Last Stand from Brooklyn and Mouthpiece.

Toilet Reading

2011-10-17T13:07:00.001-04:00

digging through the archives again for shots I haven't posted in the past due to this reason or that...found these two. The model is Narcissa

Outtake - Brooklyn Bridge and Bondage

2011-10-15T19:56:00.000-04:00

From the Archive - Bagged, Bound, & Gagged

2011-10-15T16:23:00.002-04:00

Why and How?

2011-10-15T15:11:00.000-04:00

I get a few questions from time to time. Not many. I'm not famous by anyones definition of the word. Not even infamous. But every now and again someone thinks that I might have an answer to a question they have. The two I get the most are:

"Why do you do what you do?" and "How do you get away with it?" Two relatively simple questions. One has a very simple answer, the other one not so much.

1. "How do you get away with it?" (plus various variations on said theme) In the words of the Nike marketing gods - "Just Do It". The biggest key is finding brave models that are in it for the love of good images and kinda like being shown off. I don't shoot run and gun. I don't do flashing photography. Quite the opposite. I like to set up the shot. I almost always use flash. I generally do at least one or two test shots sometimes with a coat/long shirt over the model and sometimes with the outfit you see in the finals. Some of my fearlessness comes from size. Some of it is just NYC attitude. But I've only ever really had one issue while i was shooting and that was in Tampa Florida - not on the streets of my hometown.

2. Why do you do what you do is much more complex...and will be the subject of a second post....Duty calls right now.