Aeneas

Aeneas is from the poem "The Aeneid" written by Virgil. Andy Armano created a cinematic series of images where I model as Aeneas during the Trojan War period who later traveled to Italy, ironic :) to become the ancestor of the Romans. Andy organized the project very well. He created a shot list where the whole story was broken down into segments. It made shooting the project very smooth and fluid as we went through each segment. We worked in a movie director and actor style where we focused on the segment at hand and talked about the story in relation to what we were trying to capture.

Andy gave me the shot list a few days ahead of the shoot so that I knew exactly what to expect. In some segments there was a need for a lot of intense emotions. So as I learned the shot list I decided to make notes on what to focus on when the time comes for me to express the emotion for the shot. Then the night before those specific segments I thought it would be good to focus on those feelings and bring out the emotions. To be honest it wasn't a pleasant exercise. I literally had to mentally put myself in past experiences that were painful and uncomfortable so that I could truly express the feelings that Aeneas went through. Ironic enough, I went through some similar experiences and it worked out in the sense that what I was focusing on was very close to the story. I did this exercise the night before so that it was easier to get in that state of mind faster when it was time to capture it. When it was actually time to shoot it, the exercise paid off and I was able to emotianally get there quicker in order to keep the shoot going. As the project went on I learned more and more that modeling is very similar to acting. Its acting without words. And the image looks the best when the expressions are real and true.*What is Amazing now is that since that exercise I am more able to get to those emotions quicker on demand at any time* It was well worth it, not only for the shots but for the experience and how it improved my "expressions inventory".

This project was such a learning experience and I am so grateful to Andy for allowing me to be apart of his series of Heros. I am very proud of our work and how it all looks. We truly brought out all our creativity for this project and made sacrifices to make every image radiate beauty, originality, and art. I cannot wait to share it with the world.


Andy is in the process of post production and organzing the images in conjunction with the story. Above is the cover of the project(the one in color), and the black and white is what some of the images will look like in the show, with the text from the poem on the side.

Fine Art Project complete

Just finished Andy's Fine Art Project a couple hours ago. We shot 4 days and took so many pictures. I'm so freaking excited!

The project is a story about Aeneas, a Trojan leaving plundered Troy after the Trojan war (a lot of "troy' in that sentence lol) and it illustrates Aeneas' climatic moments in his life with all he has to experience in his journey to do the will of the gods and find the not yet founded city of Rome where his son will have the throne. The project itself mixes body and male beauty, photography with story, emotion and motion. Andy did one with Achilles and had a show in Miami and it got great feedback. http://andyarmano.com/fine_art/fineart.html He plans on doing the same with Aeneas.

Doing the project with Andy was so much fun. On top of all the fun I also learned so much more on expressions and "moving" as a model. There were many segments in the project that required a lot of different expressions and some were mixed expressions. To come up with them and make sure they were showing in my face and body was the concept. I did well and learned that much of it was actually feeling what I was trying to portray in the picture. I did this so much for the past 3 days that I know what expressions look good in an image and how far to go with the expression to make it look real but not too much.

Ahh I learned so much! Up until now I have done more than 20 photo shoots and I have gotten so much out of all of them. But this project alone I feel has doubled my skill as a model and my "moving" that I mentioned earlier. Moving is how the model moves through motions without having the photographer or anyone else direct them. To come up with different postitions, angles, expressions all at once to add to the picture. In many images you see in magazines and other places it is the picture that the model is moving that was chosen. When the model and photograper are, as I call it, "in sync" they have the same energy for the shoot and same focus on what they are trying to capture. When this happens it is easier to get that shot that is needed but also to push creativity to come up with something even potentially better and completely different. Me and Andy were in sync the whole time and we got some incredible material. It is awesome that both of us work great together and can be in sync so easisly. It was an experience that challenged ourselves to push our boundries of creativity, and it pushed me as a model and Andy as a photographer to produce the images that will be in his show. I cant wait :)

I will post once I know the date and place of the show. I also added some more behind the scene pics :P

Fine Art Project

How Andy and I met is pretty crazy. I just got back to Orlando from interviews with angencies in Miami. I was at the computer and decided to check my Models.com profile to see if I had any recent contacts. It had been a while since the last time I checked. When I logged on I saw that a photographer had contacted me and was interested in shooting. I looked at his site and he had amazing images. I was stoked! But then I checked the date of the message and realized he contacted me a month ago. I got bummed out right away because I thought I missed out on the opportunity. I thought about it for a second and decided what the hell, I'll call him and explain to him that I havent checked my profile in a month and that I am very interested in shooting. So I made the call and Andy answered, and was impressed that I took initiative in calling right away. We chatted for a bit and decided to meet for coffee and discuss our shoot. After that, we had the shoot and it was those pictures that got me with NEXT Miami :) Since then Andy and I have been updating eachother on whats new, discussing fashion, and just good talks about life.

For the past 2 days now I have been shoting with Andy Armano for his Fine Art Project. It has been a blast so far! We've shot at Cape Canaveral Beach, some hiking trails, and a couple other locations. We review the images at the end of the day and Oh My Gosh they are Awesome! It is going to be torture waiting until he has his show for others to see the pictures. But it will be worth it :)

We took some behind the scene shots at the beach just for fun :P

I added Andy's link to his website. Check it out!

http://andyarmano.com/

Mark Drew

I received some more pics from my previous shoot with Mark Drew today and I wanted to share them. Check out more of his work at MarkDrewStudio.com and his blog at MarkDrewStudio.blogspot.com

its set!

I booked my plane ticket to Italy a couple days ago. I leave Septmeber 1st and arrive September 2nd in the morning. I am so stoked! I am going to focus the rest of this month on making money. I've spoken to a friend that is a clothing designer for RW Apparel, Roger Williams, who's been to Milan many times and he said that I am going to have the time of my life, and that I am going to come back to the states with incredible stuff. I also spoke to one of my friends Rob Thwaites who is a model who just got back from Milan and he said it was amazing and that he got a lot of good contacts.

Started today on losing 5 more pounds. I'll be about 150lbs after its said and done. I am 6'1" as well so I will definitely be more of the thinner side and have less muscle. Its a good thing muscle has memory! Because I plan on getting some of it back once Im back in the states.