Sisterhood of the Travelling Red Dress (Daily S.P.O.T. for 2/8/2010)

You've probably heard of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, the book and movie series about four young female friends and the magical pair of jeans that fits each and every one of them perfectly. (When you consider that two of the actresses in the film adaptation were the respective stars of GOSSIP GIRL and UGLY BETTY, it's pretty clear that magic -- or a whole lotta spandex! -- had to be involved...)

It turns out I accidentally created a similar sisterhood, this one based around a basic red satin dress, size "small," halter top, knee-length pleated skirt.  The same type worn by Marilyn Monroe in that scene from The Seven Year Itch where she wanders over a subway grate, as well as the brisk breeze emanating from same -- an iconic pinup image that I confess to being neither the first, nor last, photographer to visit in my career. And like Marilyn's dress, this little number came with a Won't-Stay-Down hemline at no additional charge...

	The dress was originally purchased for the curvy young lady to my left: Vyper, a Florida-based wrestling valet who, thanks to relentless MySpace self-promotion second only to Tila Tequila, had extended her fan base far outside the Sunshine State. We had been exchanging photo comments on 'Space for some time, until she came across this pic in my gallery and declared "When we shoot, I wanna do something like this!" You had best believe I booked my flight and hotel the very next day. This shot was taken at the entrance to the beach on Ft. Lauderdale's main drag, with the ocean providing a nice bit of natural breeze.
	The dress next wound up on the slim frame of glamour model/neo-hippie chick Sativa Verte* (whom you Fuse viewers might remember from a few memorable episodes of their Pants-Off Dance-Off show). For this shoot, we added a white crinoline for a little vintage fluff -- and Sativa, who'd previously done a "naughty cancan girl" set with me, added a few energetic high kicks before pretty much shedding the vast majority of the outfit. 'Cuz that's, y'know, how she rolls. (This photo session, at my regular stomping grounds Studio 212* in Metuchen, NJ, was to be part of the aborted MODEL BEHAVIOR DVD THREE, which may eventually see the light of day -- but I'm not holding my breath. Come home, Sativa, all is forgiven...) *LOUD WARNING: Site contains nekkid wimmen.
	Brenda Fernandez is part of the "Queens of Elizabeth, NJ," a pack of aspiring models whose ranks include the Delgado sisters Joanie and Carmen (profiled in "Backlighting, Part 3") and Diana Quezada. Brenda falls somewhere between Vyper and Sativa on the "curvy" spectrum, but still rocked the dress effectively, mixing things up a bit with red stilletos and garters. Speaking of backlighting, there's more than plenty here courtesy of a strobe behind the white muslin background to blast it out nicely. (A better example of the behind-the-scenes backlight will be explored in a subsequent post...)
	Curves galore -- and a whole lotta retro glamour -- were supplied by my favorite Morocco-born, Belgian-bred belly dancer, Saloua Elmot. Normally clad in bangles and gauzy veils -- not to mention the occasional real live snake! -- Saloua happily got in touch with her inner Betty Page on the rooftop of her Lower Manhattan apartment building. Strappy Chinese Laundry heels and vintage nylons complete a pose that wouldn't look out of place on the nose of a WWII bomber.
	And the little red dress concludes its world tour (for now, for now...) on the long, lean Carina Herman, who'd been on the same shoot as Brenda (see above), but had to wait seven months for her turn to "go Code Red." Speaking of world tours, this pedestrian walkway can be found in a Secaucus, NJ hotel/shopping complex that's a regular Stiff Shots locale.

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So what have we learned today?

"Uh, you've got a serious stocking fetish?"

Yeah, well, guilty as charged. Anyone else?

"The right outfit is timeless?"

Bingo. And if you don't believe me, believe Aunt Betty:

Back From The Dead/New Year's Resolutions

The S.P.O.T.'s been idle for way too long. Too much dust 'n' cobwebs. Grab the Pledge and the Swiffer...ah, that's more like it.

Two Thousand and Ten's turning into an interesting year, photographically, for your old pal Mr. Stiff. More interesting/intriguing/dare-I-say-it scintillating portrait work (two words: pregnant model!). More black and white work (and more ways to create said B&W; plug-ins and filters are fine, but sometimes good ol' Adobe Bridge can give you great results). Maybe I'll even shoot a few more buildings, or boggy marshes, in addition to the usual cheesecake pinups and wrestling shots.

And maybe...just maybe...I'll figure out a way to restart/salvage the aborted high-rez 'n' widescreen MODEL BEHAVIOR DVD THREE project. In the interim, here's a fragment, shot in the style of your typical TV pharmaceutical commercial. While heavily censored, it's still very much Not Safe For Work, so view accordingly:


It's shaping up to be a verrrrrry interesting twelve months. Join me, won'tcha?

WSU and The Art Of The Hard Sell (Daily S.P.O.T. for 6/9/09)

Pro wrestling is, at its basest level, a form of pantomime: telling a story with body movements rather than words, and doing so in a way that everyone in the arena, from ringside to the last row of the cheap seats, knows what is going on. Oh, words would come later, to advance story lines or verbally castrate your opponent (those things called "promos"), but from its carny-sideshow roots, long before microphones -- much less telephoto lenses -- were even available, the grapplers had to communicate triumph and tragedy with nothing more than facial expressions. Used in the right place and at the right time, a grimace, a grin, or a wordless, agonized shriek clued EVERYBODY in the audience into what was going on in the squared circle.

This is the art of the "sell." In 90% of pro wrestling -- where punches, kicks, and pretzel-logic holds LOOK more devastating than they really are -- the way the wrestler on the receiving end of all this scripted abuse reacts will determine how convincing their opponent's offense appears.

Hard selling of the best sort was on display this past Saturday when Women's Superstars Uncensored (WSU for short), an all-female indy wrestling federation, held one of their quarterly live shows/videotapings in a funky old theater in Boonton, NJ. By now, you're probably looking at the first picture and asking "'All-female?' Then who's the bloke getting his spine rearranged?" Ah, that would be Sean Hanson, nominally a referee for various NY/NJ promotions as well as WSU's play-by-play man. For reasons too convoluted to recap, Hanson and the far more flamboyant Rick Cataldo were tag-teaming against Cataldo's old cohorts Roxie Cotton and Annie Social, a/k/a "The Beatdown Betties," as to who would remain in the Betties. That's Social, by the way, delivering a rather antisocial boot to Hanson's C5 vertebrae. (We'll see more of her shortly.) Now, Annie's a tough little slugger from South Philly who doesn't suffer fools gladly in real life, much less the ring; her MySpace blog is littered with "Pervert of the Week" entries in which she puts clueless, wannabe mack daddy playaz on blast. Point is, she's probably putting just enough mustard into her swing to make it look convincing in the balcony, but Hanson's reactions make it look like he's getting kicked by the entire chorus line at Minsky's, as it were.

Here's a great example of "double-team" selling, as Rain (a/k/a Peyton Banks of TNA fame) tries to rip the nostrils and upper lip off of Nikki Roxx (a/k/a Roxxie Laveaux of etc. -- and TNA's all the worse for letting both ladies go). Now Rain is a classic, old-school Southern-style heel (or bad-guy wrestler), alternately cocky, chicken-shit, and psycho; cheat to win and make Machiavelli proud of ya in the process. Nikki is playing vintage babyface (i.e. good-guy): Mom, apple pie, Girl Scout oath and Sunday school all rolled into one. Again, Rain's probably not applying enough pressure to crack an egg, much less tear hair and skin, but both ladies have cranked their personalities up to 11, and there should be no question who the average wrestling mark should be cheering or booing. ('Cept for me -- I like heels, of either gender, and Rain's been one of my favorites since debuting in WSU within the last year.)

One of the highlights of the WSU show was the "Uncensored Rumble" -- in other words, a battle royale in which twenty wrestlers collide and try to throw each other out of the ring. From a photographic standpoint, I'm generally not a fan of battle royales: between the all-over-the-place action and random bodies flying past your ears, it's tough to stay at ringside, camera at the ready, and not feel like you're walked into the latest Israel-Palestine brouhaha. Fortunately, WSU staggered the contestants' entries (instead of starting with all twenty ladies in the ring), so it was easier to track the action and not worry for my health and well-being. Here's Trixie Lynn, not too happy about taking a random suplex from one of the other nineteen entrants.

Remember Annie Social? Yeah, she was the one putting the boot to the zebra at the top o' the page. Well, Annie sells her wrestling "injuries" better than a lot of people you see on TV. Here she is recovering from a chop to the clavicle in the Rumble...

...and a few moments later, after being unceremoniously dumped through the ring ropes. A textbook definition of "pissed off."

Then again, Annie's fellow Beatdown Bettie didn't do much better. But by contrast, Roxxie -- who's gimmick is an 80's style mall rat, and yes, she's come out to the Zappas' "Valley Girl" -- greeted her elimination from the Rumble not with anger, but with pouting and tears.

Which brings us to the headlining match: current champion Mercedes Martinez and former champ Angel Orsini slugging it out in a sixty-minute, anything-goes Ironman...er, Ironwoman Match. Lots of brawling all over the building (including the box seats above the stage and the ring-rental trailer outside!), plus copious use of chairs, ladders, tables, and kendo sticks. Just for reference, that's Martinez in the foreground, getting "stretched on the rack" by Orsini; while she may bill herself as the "Latina Sensation," I'm pretty sure Mercedes was NOT expecting the Spanish Inquisition.

(This would also be a good time to point out that, whereas in boxing or MMA, long hair is a decided disadvantage, in wrestling photography it can make for some great visuals. Orsini in particular has hair that goes flying when she's on the attack...)

Bottom line: The better the wrestlers sell, the more the wrestling audience will buy. And I don't care if you're a stone smart-mark who knows it's a con but enjoys it anyway, or if you're Mr. "It's Still Real To Me, Dammit!" There is real pain in pro wrestling, no doubt, but the magic occurs when the "fake" pain looks even worse. Sell, sell, sell!

To find out more about WSU, click here.

To see the entire gallery from the 6/6/09 show, click here.

Banned! (Daily S.P.O.T. for 6/3/09)

"Censorship is an ugly thing in this country." - Mike Binkley, Bloom County

In January of this year, I was attending a meeting of one of the photo clubs I belong to (Snapshot Syndicate). The meeting, it turned out, included a photo shoot with guest models: a pair of classically trained dancers, who graced us with a series of holds, lifts, and leaps. (Interestingly, two of the shutterbugs working alongside of me had trouble snapping the action shots at the right moment; on the other hand, all my years capturing wrestlers in midair definitely paid off!) At the suggestion of the choreographer, I immediately processed all the dance pictures in black and white.

Here's one of my favorite shots from the session (the complete set can be seen at the Snapshot Syndicate site). It went right into my portfolio. A few months later, my canvas-printing vendor decided to give me credit for ANOTHER free enlargement, so this photo was chosen to get the gallery treatment, a la "The Remains of the Martian Complex." And just like that print, my day job's department director liked it so much that he ordered it prominently displayed in our main area.

Where it stayed...for all of one day.

The next morning, I came in to discover it gone from the wall. Security was called, and I went back to my desk in a snit...only to discover the print had been surreptitiously tucked next to my printer. It was then that my manager revealed she'd taken the picture down herself, after someone voiced the opinion that it might be "inappropriate."

What...the...fuck?!?

I'm sorry, I don't recall David Duke taking control of my company. And the last time I checked CNN, we had an African-American commander in chief, not to mention celebrities like Heidi Klum and David Bowie with non-Caucasian spouses.

However, in all fairness, my department does share a floor with Human Resources, and while many of us (including yours truly and the aforementioned director) don't exactly worship at the altar of political correctness, we certainly try to hew to corporate guidelines/"discretion is the better part of employment." (In all honesty, some years back I blithely posted some of my early wrestling shots in my cubicle, including shots of Jasmin St. Claire and other provocatively-clad divas, and a female co-worker lodged a complaint. So I'm not insensitive to the feelings of others, and I do learn from my mistakes...)

Luckily, this story has a happy ending. The picture was recently re-hung, albeit in a downstairs satellite office away from disapproving eyes. More importantly, both the department director and another co-worker promptly ordered their own canvases from this set, and a third cubicle-head is mulling over an order even as we speak. (Ca-ching!)

Who was it who said "cash from controversy?" Oh, yeah: the guy who gave us the Sex Pistols.

Alpha Psi Ecdysia, Part 1 (Daily S.P.O.T. for 5/21/09)

Alpha Psi Ecdysia sounds like a college sorority. In fact, on most days you'd find its members wandering about the SUNY New Paltz campus. But the "Ecdysia" part comes from "ecdysiast," which (according to ye olde Wiki) is the term humorist H. L. Mencken coined for a stripper acquaintance who wanted a more dignified name for her profession. (Both words are based on "ecdysis", meaning "to molt" or "to shed.")

So yes, the girls (and guys) of A.P.E. are, in fact, strippers -- more precisely, burlesque performers, part of the neo-burlesque movement spearheaded by the likes of Dita von Teese, Angie Pontani, and the Suicide Girls. Alpha Psi is an on-campus burlesque club -- one of only three in the entire country, and the only one at a state-run college. It's old-school (pun very much intended!) bump 'n' grind that stops at pasties and G-strings, shot through with a healthy dose of role playing, satire, social commentary, and some serious polymorphous perversity. Gypsy Rose Lee would heartily approve; so would Germaine Greer. I'd say more, but their own press release pretty much encapsulates what makes this troupe so much fun:

Saucy coeds, funky themes, uncomfortable parents, and academic tomfoolery with a side of nudity!...Alpha Psi Ecdysia offers comedy, live music, circus, and the sexiest girls (and boys) to ever pursue a useless degree. See New York State taxpayer dollars put to good use as "America's Hottest Small State School" takes its title literally. Tip 'em well! College ain't cheap.

Last week, A.P.E. celebrated their one-year anniversary with a performance down the road from their alma mater, and a mutual friend suggested I check them out (thanks, Liz Savage!). There aren't a lot of things that'll make me drive seventy miles across state lines...on a Thursday...in the pouring rain...with the promise of not getting home until two in the morning. Turns out this is one of them. And here are some of the reasons why.

We start with the aptly-named Lady Legs, a classic fan dancer in the Sally Rand tradition. Elegant, posed, and graceful, whether with ostrich-feather fans that covered her as thoroughly as her evening gown, or a tiny paper fan that barely covered anything. Burlesque has always been the rougher downtown cousin of vaudeville, but Legs reminded us there are always exceptions to that rule.

Gemma Stone, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of "elegant" -- and God (or Satan, or Johnny Rotten) bless her for it. All you need to know about Gemma is that her three favorite movies are TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, Jenna Jameson's straight-to-DVD ZOMBIE STRIPPERS, and FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! -- all three of which came into play over the course of the evening.

Even before the show started, she was entertaining the crowd as one of the more literal of A.P.E.'s "stage kittens" (go-go dancers-cum-stagehands), and I dare say T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, had it dared to include Gemma, would have joined The Story of O in the banned-books category.



But wait -- you ain't seen nothin' yet. Once the actual show began, Gemma hit the stage for her very own tribute to Tobe Hooper's splatterama: bloody smock, red heels and lingerie, and a glitter-encrusted cardboard chainsaw, set to an unholy medley of "Deep in the Heart of Texas" and the Misfits' JFK-in-Dallas classic "Bullet" (which is only one of the Best. Songs. Evah!). Texas twang meets New Jersey punk rock meets drive-in classic -- in a country 'n' western bar, no less. (The irony just writes itself.)

So how the hell do you top that? With the Godfather of Punk Rock, that's how. Cranking up the Stooge's "Search and Destroy," Stone proceeded to get in touch -- literally! -- with her inner Iggy Pop. And if you know ANYTHING about "the world's forgotten boy," it should come as no surprise that a jar of peanut butter came into play.

(In an email to the author, A.P.E. founder/producer Lucida Sans wrote "Gemma is rather insane and brilliant; that girl has no idea how hugely badass she is." Oh, word word word.)

Insanity of a different flavor (no pun intended!) was the domain of one Ginger Snap. "Good girl gone bad?" Rhianna, you don't know the half of it. How about we start with the nerdy, goody-two-shoes schoolgirl who -- after her Valentine's Day gift is spurned -- sheds her glasses and old school tie and gets in touch with her inner Clockwork Orange droog?

But that was chump change compared to the followup, in which Ginger's Virgin Mary has some rather...uh..."forceful" opinions about birthing the Son of God.

I dare say there won't be too many Catholic parishes booking this for the Christmas Pageant. And for those wondering: no, that is not sacramental wine she's hosing herself down with.

(Prior to the venue opening, I was chatting up Miss Absinthe, a junior member of the troupe, and she'd warned me that Alpha Psi's skits weren't particularly "plastic fetus friendly." To which I retorted, in my best Sawyer-from-LOST drawl, "Darlin', I saw Alice Cooper in concert not too long ago, and he was running doll babies through with a friggin' sword. Didn't faze me then, won't faze me now.")

And let's not forget the aforementioned Ms. Sans, who let a smile (and not much else) be her umbrella, and offered up a classic "seven veils" bellydance -- despite a gold lace bra which decided that "wardrobe malfunction" should be a way of life...

In our next installment: social satire, feminist commentary, overcoming body issues, and more gender bending than a Ru-Paul world tour. You'd be a fool NOT to return!

(In the meanwhile, you can peruse the entire Alpha Psi Ecdysia gallery here.)

Anatomy of a Wrestling Feud (Daily S.P.O.T. for 5/18/09)

LOUD WARNING: The following entry contains pictures of pro-wrestling-related violence, including real blood. Reader discretion is advised.

Pro wrestling, at its basest level, is the struggle between Good and Evil. There must be a face (the hero) and a heel (the villain), and ideally there should be a fundamental reason why they need to creatively beat the snot out of each other -- be it the prestige of a championship belt, the love of a good woman, a disrespect that must be avenged. Motivation -- that's the word I'm looking for.

In the Good Old Days, a convincing feud between two wrestlers was built up over time. In fact, if it was done correctly, the grapplers didn't even need to lay a hand on each other. A pumped-up insult here, a run-in that changed the outcome of a match there. When they finally met up in the "squared circle" -- preferably in front of a capacity crowd and/or a big pay-per-view audience -- the anticipation of what they'd do to one another was overwhelming. Thanks to a generation raised on MTV editing and instant gratification, the art of slowly building a wrestling feud is on the endangered species list.

Some wrestling federations, on the other hand, still do things the Old Fashioned Way. Bodyslam Wrestling Organization (BWO), a NJ-based fed-cum-wrestling school, spent a solid year building up a feud between veteran brawler Chaos (the metal-band-roadie-lookin' guy in the photos) and fan-favorite-turned-despised-heel Evan "Lone Wolf" Myers. Chaos had actually stepped away from active wrestling, due to a bad concussion and years of in-ring damage, but that didn't stop Myers from repeated and vicious verbal attacks, trying to get Chaos to snap, charge the ring, and injure himself further. All the while, Chaos stood at the sidelines, seething with fury, but unable -- or unwilling -- to attack, while audience members screamed for Myers' blood.

They got it this past April, at a Garfield High School show. A year of bad blood resulted in a near-thermonuclear battle between the two. This was no technical match, no highspot-fest, just a good old-fashioned ass-kicking with smashed chairs, barbed-wire baseball bats, and bodies tumbling down the bleachers. In the end, with both men lying bleeding and battered (literally: Chaos cracked some ribs at some point in the bout), it almost didn't matter who won and who lost. For the duration of the match, both made the audience believe, however briefly, that they were fighting each other for A Reason.

And that is when professional wrestling succeeds.

Hunter vs. Slice (Daily S.P.O.T. for 5/14/09)

Another day, another USA-Pro show, another women's match. Here's Kara Slice clamping down on April Hunter at a September 2004 show in a Jamaica, NY nightclub. (The club itself wasn't a bad venue for a wrestling show, but the lighting was atrocious; the promoter didn't want to pay for the full nightclub lighting to be turned on, so everyone wrestled under the fluorescent work lights. Ugh.)

April and Kara had a whole bunch of battles on the NY/NJ/Philly circuit in the early part of the 21st century, in part because they were two of the taller wrestling ladies on the scene and their size parity made for more believable matches.

Kara eventually got a WWE developmental deal, trained at their Ohio Valley Wrestling facility in Louisville, KY, and debuted on Smackdown! in January '07 alongside GREASE-themed tag team Deuce 'n' Domino as the gum-chewing, roller-skating Cherry. In August of '08, she fell victim to one of WWE's periodic roster trimmings and was released from her contract; after returning to NJ for a handful of indy dates, she announced she was stepping away from the squared circle to further her education.

April will go down in the history books as one of the great coulda-shoulda-woulda stories of the Northeast scene. Despite getting camera time in both WCW (as Scott Steiner's valet) and the early days of TNA, Hunter never caught the lucky breaks that her tag-team partners (Nikki Roxx, Talia Madison) did. After years of not wanting to leave the Northeast, she finally relocated to Louisville and signed up with OVW on her own -- just as WWE was severing ties with them as a farm league/feeder system. And by that time, years of accumulated in-ring injuries had pretty much spelled the end of her career as an active wrestler, although she continues in a managerial role at ringside, and she's still in demand as a model and aspiring photographer.

But cry no tears for either lady -- they've both accomplished more (in and out of the ring) than most of us. And you will see a good deal more of them as this bloggeroo continues...

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Update! April Hunter herself posted the following on the G.L.O.R.Y. Wrestling message board:

Like the pic, Robert!

And this part isn't exactly true: "After years of not wanting to leave the Northeast, she finally relocated to Louisville and signed up with OVW on her own -- just as WWE was severing ties with them as a farm league/feeder system. And by that time, years of accumulated in-ring injuries had pretty much spelled the end of her career as an active wrestler, although she continues in a managerial role at ringside, and she's still in demand as a model and aspiring photographer."

I quit in-ring work (except custom matches, since the bumping is minimal) back when I was still in the northeast. I moved to Louisville for JD [Michaels, her better half] to go to OVW...not me.

I'm simply a photographer & model down here and do some occasional match managing & journalism, too.
I'm shooting everything from maternity photos to MMA/UFC now. I hope to get some good Wallylighting for this weekends show.

(Wow, looks like someone's actually been, y'know, READING this damn thing...)