Good evening, Steemit! I've been running head first through New Year deadlines [...some pretty stressful], and maintaining some unexpected [but welcome] career momentum. Missing posts here makes me feel bad, but when I first found Steemit in August of last year, I promised myself I'd only be making posts worth reading. I wasn't going to try and fill "Submit a Story" spaces with garbage in hopes of grabbing rewards. My time has been thin lately, but I'm working on two really big posts I can't wait to finish and share.

This post, however, is a collected work of my collaborations w/ alt model, Sar Elle. In 2010, I'd just moved to Minneapolis. I'd been shooting for 10 years, but nothing serious [...although, as a secretly insecure Leo, I tried to trick myself, and others, in to believing I was far more accomplished than I actually was]. I'd worked in a psychiatric hospital as a Mental Health Tech for 7 of those 10 years, and during my free time I'd set up these shoots in Scranton, PA; maybe sometimes get paid.

New city. New opportunities, and one of the first was with Sar. The following year, Sar was on the cover of Bizarre magazine. I discovered Bizarre hiding up by the dirty mags at Barnes & Nobles around 2003. I was drawn in to it immediately. Disturbing images from the war in Iraq [...not that I enjoy seeing them, but understanding these atrocities were happening, despite our nation's diluted media coverage], explanations of unusual fetishes and editorials on weird phenomenons like glass eating [...something you'll easily be able to connect the dots with if you've ready my previous post "Why in the Hell would you eat a lightbulb!?"]. I subscribed to Bizarre for a ridiculous fee since it was only available from a publisher in The UK. Some years after, it must have been bought or syndicated by a US publisher because it got much cheaper and eventually, I was seeing it every where.

The magazine did have a special place in my heart. Sar had shot with a young, crazy talented photographer in Minneapolis named Julian Murray, for a book he was working on called "Tattoos and Tentacles". Now in 2017, tentacle fetishes that evolved as a result of censorship in Japanese pornography aren't a fringe sexual anomaly, but in 2011, it was. Julian's book project got the attention of Bizarre, and they featured it, and on the cover was Sar.

Through friends of friends, Sar and I networked and met to discuss a shoot. We decided a gallery for Zivity was a better alternative than Suicide Girls [...whom I've shot for several times, but still hesitate with unless I'm being hired directly by the model].

We met at @mada's beautiful home in uptown. Sar is a total knockout to begin with, but her make-up was perfect. On top of a modeling career that took off like a rocket, she's an amazingly talented professional make-up artist. She also brought a collection of slips, robes and lingerie including a $280 Agent Provocateur bra! @mada's place offered a perfect backdrop for a moody, dimly lit, seductive shoot. The art created that afternoon was even more prosperous as @mada accompanied us throughout the home, drawing gestures and figure studies as we shot.

The shoot with Sar Elle became a springboard for future shoots with Suicide Girls, Zivity, and created opportunities for shoots with tattooed models, such as Cara Mia, which I'll be posting in the near future.

I post often, so follow my blog here on Steemit @kommienzuspadt, if you aren't already. If you are, thank you!

roydowding