latest news from Sylvie Blum

When I see Kim with his blond funky hair, his big hands like bear paws always ready to meter in one corner of a place... his awake and friendly eyes wandering around to spot an area that could be the next creative treasure for him. I like how down to earth this man is, how soft and quiet he directs his models into a pose...I love how he sees light and how he transforms a situation he creates into a piece of art. The days we worked together, seeing him creating images next to me, made me feel this deeply trust that he will capture magic.

He works exact... from a stand, always in frame of the negative size, his meter is placed in a revolver pocket on his belt and he seems to play and plan at the same time. I was excited how he used my space and the props he found in my surroundings.

 He captured them in a new and exciting way, only an artist can do. I thought it was refreshing and an inspiration to learn from him how simple things can get alive through a geniously perception.

One day I will ask Kim, the man with the meter, the cool cameras, the film rolls in an oyster cooler, if he takes me to his darkroom and lets me be a witness of the first moment when his vision transforms into a piece of art.

www.kimweston.com

All images shown in this blog are by Kim Weston !

Angela worked with me the last 2 weeks. We had lot's of fun and have been creative. Angela wrote a Blog for me about herself.

Enjoy it

My name is Angela and I am a nude model from Canada. People always want to know why I like to pose nude, and I wish I had some really profound answers, but for me it is just a liberating and challenging thing. It is a way to express myself and I get to exercise my appreciation for the female form.

The nude body truly is a beautiful and fascinating thing, and like Sylvie always says, it is timeless. I started modeling nude nearly three years ago after being photographed just for fun by one of my lovers. I posted the nude photos on a model networking site and a few month later a photographer from California flew to Canada to shoot me. One year later I met Sylvie Blum. Besides Sylvie, other photographers I really admire are Ellen von Unwerth, Paolo Roversi, and Peter Lindbergh. All of these artists are so incredibly talented and have such distinct styles and visions.

Back to Sylvie ... I met her nearly two years ago and she instantly became one of my favorite people. Her energy is infectious and she has such a wonderful personality. I love working with her for so many reasons. She has a huge heart and so many passion for what she does. Sylvie has the coolest visions and such a unique style. I feel I can't possibly do this woman justice so suffice it to say that she is fabulous, hilarious, larger than life, passionate, creative, spontaneous and so inspired and appreciative of the beauty of the female form. She knows her angles and lighting so well, and I know she will always make me look as good as I possibly can. She has the best ideas and I will do pretty much anything I can to make her visions come to fruition. If she tells me she wants me to walk naked through the desert with a lion or a tiger I do it. Or I'll stand in the freezing cold water until my fingers are numb because I absolutley believe in her visions and know the result will be somthing so crazy cool and incredible. I think we work so well together because she knows I trust her, and because I share her vision and her enthusiasm. Also I know she believes in me and appreciates me, and this makes all the difference in the world.

Sometimes I meet photographers and I don't see their vision or share their ideas on beauty, no matter how hard I try. With Sylvie, it's different. I just get her. I always see what she is talking about and trust her completely. It's cool too, because she is spontaneous at times, and at other times she works for month and month to perfect her vision-like with the Big Cat shoot. She's totaly genius and part of the reason she is cool in my eyes is because she is a female photographer. Woman see woman differently than men do. Sylvie creates images that show the beauty, power and versatility of woman, where as many male photographers focus more on the sexuality of a naked woman. Sylvie's images are classic, timeless and unique. My favourite pictures in my portfolio are the ones I created with Sylvie. She always manages to get the best out of me because I believe in her, and because I'm inspired by her. If you don't have inspiration when it comes to art, then you don't have anything. With Sylvie I'm always feeling creative and energetic and I really believe in her wholeheartedly. I feel so fortunate to have met this cool lady and created such great photographs with her. I know there are big things in her future and I will always be rooting for her. She's an inspiration and best of all, she has become one of my dearest friends in the world. Yay Sylvie Blum!

Angela's Portfolio

Since the first time I saw Kim Westons work I was in love with his style and this was many years ago. His classy vision of shooting the nude is timeless and balanced, the story behind his work is true and beautiful. Kim Weston is a master of his genre and I'm very honored to have had the opportunity to spend 3 days working with him at my white box studio in Los Angeles.

I met Kim and Gina Weston about a year ago at their beautiful place in Carmel. This was also when we decided to do a photographing project together.

http://www.kimweston.com/new_work/new_work.htm

OUR SHOOT

This is us getting prepared for a fun day.

Right in the picture is Ed Martin, a dear friend and one of the most creative people I have ever met. He is 83 years old and during our 3 day shoot he was with us, photographing and celebrating life.

Ed used to be a cinematographer, that is now a still photographer, he creates fabolous colorful photographs mainly flowers, seeds and object he finds in his surroundings and place them in his scanner to make the image. Ed is a true artist !!!

You can read his fascinating bio and see his work.

http://www.martingallery.com

Kim came with his exciting cameras, I was magnetified by his working style.

Gina Weston Kims wife and muse is filming Ed and Kim while they are shooting the models, using the head light in the studio.

Kim came and brought those crazy props. he prepared them for the shoot by waxing and cleaning them.we used these very organic things for a vision we named "Birth and Art" or something else....

This are some first results during the shoot with model Kat as Birdwoman.

Lastest Publication of German online GQ Magazine. Showing my Big Cats and Nudes from the Body Perfect Project. Check this out...

GQ-MAGAZINE.DE

I'm very happy about my latest publication of my Big Cats in German FotoMagazine, January issue 2009.

Among with others like Annie Leibowitz, Bettina Rheims and Peter Beard in the big       Nude Special Issue.

you will find more backstage informations and pictures about the shoot at fotomagazin.de. For all those people who speak German.

Also my favourite Gallery Lumas made some beautiful big prints of my Big Cats. Check it out at

Lumas.com

Welcome to my Blog

I will post news, behind the scences, movies and more details about the Big Cat Shoot.

Sylvie

It all started with this painting  from the Belgian painter Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921) titled "The Sphinx or The Caresses" 1896. I saw it when I was a little girl.

I was so very much impressed by the woman who was a cheetah and all my life I wanted to find this woman or the cheetah.

Many years later, when I was a photographer I planned my trip to South Africa and Namibia in 2004 to find a cheetah. I drove many lonely roads throughout this beautiful country till I found a cheetah who might could be a part of the picture of my dreams.

It was very difficult to find the right woman who could have the quality of a sphinx, so I decided to shoot a selfportrait with this wonderful and fascinating cat. This was the first step to get a little closer to the picture of my dreams.

In 2007 after I moved to Los Angeles I found Randy Miller from Predators in Action, he won the Academy Award in 2001 for Best Animal Stunt in the movie Gladiator.

I started to shoot with his Cougar and one of my favourite models Ashley, to find out, how it would be to work with a big cat. What I didn't expect was the snow up in the San Bernadino Mountains. I was shocked and all the setting didn't look like I wanted to have it, but I wanted to shoot so badly, no matter how cold and wet it was.

Ashley and my team worked very hard for me on that day. As  for the fact that the circumstances have been extremely nasty .

The cougar was beautiful, but he never did what he should do, to look great in the picture.

 I knew an animal would be very hard to photograph and I wanted to keep everything as natural as possible. I just wanted to be able to capture the magic of this moment.  After a whole day of extreme hard work I was able to have had captured 3 images which I liked.

Still...my dream picture was not made.

I discussed with Randy about his Tigers and Lion, I made sketches about the final pictures which I had in mind and send it to him,  to find out what could be possible to shoot with his animals and I wanted him to understand what I had in mind....

He loved it and got prepared for me.

We all got so very much thrilled about the shoot and I planed the next session for Mai 2008.

We did castings to find the right models, I wanted to have 5 strong and beautiful models which I personaly liked and could trust, that they could handle to work with this powerful animals.

We got everything organized, the shooting date was fixed, including all permits, insurances, hotels, flights, team, catering, equipment, logistics, production RV and so on...

One week before the shoot Randy Millers Cousin got killed during a training with his bear. This was a tragic accident and Randy had to cancel my shoot.

I was desperate and deeply sad, as we also had already organized everything and I could not step back any more...I had to shoot, so I found Joe from Jungle Exotics, he made the first Tarzan with Bo Derrek and I was in love with him the first time we spoke.

He and his trainers worked with us in the heat of the desert to get closer to my dream picture.

We spent days in the dry lake bed and had much fun. We were dirty, dusty and sandy like crazy at the end of a week shooting in the wilderness.

His big cats have been beautiful and fascinating animals, but still we had to be very concentrated and careful to work with them.

We had to know when to stop or the animal was not in the mood any more to do something. I wanted to have everything in real.

There is no postproduction or fake done in one of the images, everything happened in real.

This was how I wanted to have it, even it was harder to get, but for me the only way to go.

I have shot more that 6000 images on that production.

Everything about this shoot was magic. the landscape, the models my team and at the end I came a little closer to the picture of my dreams....

All those people have been part of this shoot:

Dieter Haban, Lisa Amico, Brandon Nooman, Joe and his Trainers from Exotic Animals, Randy Miller from Predators in Action and his Trainers, Phillip Haban, Michele Arns, Jacqui Jordan, Angela, Cynnamon, Kerstin, Evie and Ashley.