This photo of John Stand just made the cover of Quiver Magazine. The interview itself will be available to read next week. In the interview, photos of John, Joe Wegner and Joshua Maliszewski will be featured. My hat is off to these guys. Without such incredible talent in front of the camera, no amount of light and technique would give me images this great. My thanks to you all! - Mark
If you are liking the photos of Joe Wegner, do him a favor and vote for him in 944 Magazine’s cover model contest. Click here to cast your vote for Joe.
In April I had the honor of being interviewed by two major blogs, Connex 24/7 and Next Model Men. My thanks to you both! Please stop in to see the interviews and more photos of the incredible fitness and fashion models I have worked with.
A photo from this series of Joshua Maliszewski shot late last summer just made the cover of Hotspots Magazine in Southern Florida.
From the feedback I have been receiving on Josh, expect to see him appearing more and more often. You just can’t keep a good model down!
See also, The Many Faces of Joshua Maliszewski
Less than a week since Joe Wegner’s last publication and another shoot we did together popped up on the pages of Fantastics Magazine today. Entitled Laundry Room, it shouldn’t be too difficult to imagine the unusual location we chose for this shoot. Also, be sure to swing by Joe’s new website, joewegner.com.
I sent a photo from the shoot John Strand and I did some time ago off to Image Magazine and it was published in the April 08 issue of Image Magazine. I also received an e-mail from a major blog asking if they could run photos of John so expect to see more of John soon. Lookin’ good John!
When I did my first shoot with Joe Wegner late last year, his talent as more than a model was immediately apparent. Rather than simply strike a pose, Joe would assume the attitude or emotion required for the shot from within and project it. The resulting work had a believable quality seldom seen in still photos. I sensed there was much more waiting to be unleashed. Recently we conducted several shoots in a short period of time and the transformation from one shoot to the next was astonishing. I commented to Joe after our last shoot that it is quite difficult to believe that the same photographer and model shot the earlier and later photos.
These results of these shoots are quickly getting published. Joe’s photos have run in Genre’s Daily Heat, Beautiful Magazine and will be coming out in Fantastics Magazine early this week with more in the works.
The two photos below are part of the shoot done for Beautiful. To see more of the photos from this shoot, see the article, Deconstructing Joe Wegner at Beautiful Mag. Also don’t forget to look for him in Fantastics Mag later this week.
Expect to be hearing a lot more about Joe on this blog as we move forward with the various projects in the lineup, including a shoot planned in May for Sweat Undergear.
When John Strand, a model I have worked with on a few shoots, told me he was walking in Access World Talent’s Spring Fever Fashion Show, I contacted the agency about shooting the show. By the end of the day the thought had crossed my mind more than once that the next time someone tells me models and photographers don’t work for their money, I should drag them along to my next runway shoot.
Models were checking in for hair and makeup by 3:00 in the afternoon. Then on to wardrobe, rehearsal and finally the show that wrapped up as the midnight hour drew near. The work didn’t end then. While downloading and touching up photos, I was still exchanging e-mails with the production staff at 4:00 AM.
That said, there is an energy present during a runway show that has no equal. The backstage antics, the teamwork to put on a dazzling show, and the thrill of the show itself keep us all coming back for more.
Bodybuilder, personal trainer and model Ben Corliss recently won the title of Mr. Mountain States 2008. Ben and I will be hooking up for another shoot in the next week to catch him at his “peak.” Look for photos from this shoot coming soon. Meanwhile, here are some shots Ben and I took last November, before he bulked up for the competition.
Among other things, models often serve a double role as a muse. They can become the inspiration behind the work and in some cases help me elevate my work to a new level. Such was the case with Joshua Maliszewski.
A more natural born model would be difficult to find. With each snap of the shutter, Josh would slide effortlessly into a new pose. He connected so completely with me as the photographer and the shoot that I would do no more than think of the pose I wanted and Josh would adopt it before I could speak the words.
In one scene, Josh projected the innocence of a delighted young man receiving a kiss, in the next the joy of a romantic afternoon in the mountains and in the next a raw sensuality that made the camera sweat!
Add to that a look of playful, devilish mischief and eyes that change from a sparkling blue to smoldering dark embers that burn a hole through the lens …
and you have a 5′ 9″, 165 lb, blond, blue-eyed package that quickly caught the attention of several publications and the world.
Our first shoot was near the end of last summer and within days publications were scrambling to get him in print. I e-mailed photos from that shoot to reFresh magazine in London and within minutes the editor-in-chief responded with the words, “He’s got something! We want to run the photos in our Nov/Dec issue.”
Connex247.com and BeautifulMag.eu rushed to get photos of my shoots with Josh onto their publications, each with the conclusion that he was the next big thing. This was followed with a calendar shoot for On Display Men where he is now one of the most popular models and two appearances on DNA Magazine’s website. Josh recently completed a fashion editorial shoot on the Caribbean Islands with the French photographer, Ian Holmes, and he is being eyed by the well-known photographer, Michael Anthony Downs, for a special project. Photos from recent shoot I completed with Josh and another model, Joe Wegner (more on Joe coming soon), landed a photoshoot for Sweat Undergear’s advertising campaign in May and a fashion editorial I shot with the two will soon be published in Fantastics Mag.
The victories haven’t come without an equal share of letdowns. As with all of us in the business, I’ve seen his hopes soar with the promise of fantastic opportunities, only to have them dashed when the project never materializes: Landing a part in a cable TV movie, only to have the film canceled; the magazine cover that was knocked out of the running by a more “newsworthy” photo days before going to press… to name a few. And there are the naysayers and critics who say “you’ll never make it” or “you don’t have a chance.” With each of these, Josh has only come back stronger. Many times I’ve heard him say, “They are wrong. I CAN do it,” and he takes the next step toward his dream.
