I discovered a really cool website because of
this budding cosmetologist/hottie/hair stylist, Jess
Grace. Black Girl With Long Hair is
a website devoted entirely to black women who
wear their hair naturally. They did a feature on
Jess, who has a very cool Youtube
Channel where she teaches girls interesting
ways to wear their hair naturally. I defy you to
watch this video and not find her absolutely
adorable.
For those of you wondering what the rest of Jess
looks like, there are very few body shots of her out
there that I could find. (I don't really think that's
part of her mission.) But what I did see was
promising. Check here.
The daughter of a foreign diplomat, Christiane K was born in
Denmark, spent several years in Spain, and is
fluent in three languages. She can also put a
man down in 5 seconds flat with one of those
iPhone cases.... Well, that's not really true.
Nonetheless, this international
beauty will kick your butt if you try to
relegate her to the position of arm candy. "The
feminist in me has been surfacing a lot more
since I moved to Los Angeles," says Christi.
"It’s a shame that girls feel they have to flirt
or act like groupies in order to get places and
meet the right people...I had one guy invite me
along for a night out with some people and he
tried to tell me what to wear - to make sure it
was sexy enough. I was offended."
This Danish beauty may have strong opinions, but she
also has an open mind and is currently dating an
African American man. Christiane is represented by
the Alvarado Rey Agency and will
be prominently featured in an upcoming Coca Cola
campain, so look out for her. Also, stay tuned
for more pics of her from my shoot in Venice.
(Click first image below to see full sized
version)
I was starting to think art school cuties like
Audry in Dan Clowes' "Art School Confidential" were
just a figment of his imagination. That is, until I
met Carol Seleme Daniel - an art
student at Otis School of Design in Los
Angeles. Carol is one of those rare women
who looks even better in person than she does in
her photos. We shot in Venice a few days ago,
and there are lots of good shots to come, so
stay tuned. Meanwhile, if you want to check out
her art portfolio, you can see that here. P.S. Carol checks the
blog so she may join the discussion here once it
gets going.
I've got an ax to grind with Vanessa Veasley
It's not that I don't like her
personally - I don't really know her - but I
don't like how she ostensibly worked the system
by being an editor at SHOW while also being
featured on several covers.
According to Vanessa, that's inaccurate. A recent
exchange between us on the infamous BlakkJackSkanz message board
went a little something like this:
Within minutes of her
post, I got an email from her that read: "Instead
of making up lies and assumptions about me on your
and other websites why not just interview me? Might
be fun! Lol" Busted! Touche Ms. Veasley. What
you're about to read is the result Vanessa's good
sportmanship and invitation to interview her.
This is one of the NSFW posts, but I guarantee if you
like 'em thick you will not regret clicking this
image below. BTW, Tatiana comes to us courtesy of a
new site called Thicker.
The BBC 3 recently aired this documentary, "Music, Money & Hip Hop
Honeys" and I managed to catch it the other
night on Youtube (get it while you can, because
it will likely be taken down soon). I remember
when one of the producers for this special
reached out to Bria Myles. It's unfortunate she
was unavailable, because it's quite good.
Initially, I was a little skeptical of Nel
Hedeyat, who is not-so-secretly judging her
subjects while at the same time parading around,
as cute as a button, and in a very subtle
and intelligent way, making herself the
subject the same type of male fantasizing that
she is documenting. But by the end, she gives
one the most broadly encompassing persectives
I've ever seen on the subject, and even becomes
a video vixen herself, even if only briefly.
This is far more comprehensive than say, Sarah
Hubinger's take on having a big butt, in her
book "Jiggles."
One thing this special sheds light on is that, as
much as we may say urban modeling is dead, there are
success stotries of it here in the US that are
driving young women in the UK to still want to do
this. For instance, Angel Lola Luv is still seen
as big deal to them. Also, there's no denying
the success of Amber Rose and Kim
Kardashian. In fact, Amber made more money than
Melyssa Ford ever did. Maybe this industry isn't
completely dead after all...
A couple of scenes of note:
"Rosine" at 12:40 is probably the most voluptuous of
the vixens featured...
The segment on Elisha Jade's bad experience with a
perv photographer is definitely interesting...
Finally, perhaps the most charming segment is when
Nel gets all flattered and giggly when agent Mike
Styles tells her she's "sexy" and could be a video
vixen. I don't know if Nel was acting or not, but
that sure was an enjoyable scene. (At 49:00)
Nel's meeting with intellectual Toni Blackman is also an eye
opener - you don't expect her to say what she
does. She tells Nel she could learn a thing or
two about expressing her sexuality and being
free from video vixens.
Sonia is the perfect personification of beauty and
brains. Talk about having a back up plan - she's a
sophomore at Harvard majoring in economics and
minoring in human evolutionary biology. Of her
appearance as a "rookie" in SI, she states: "My
classmates at Harvard will flip when they see
this--especially the nerds. And at Harvard that's
everyone, myself included. I'm usually in jeans, a
chunky sweater, a ponytail and glasses, with my head
buried in a book. The people who know me would have
to seriously use their imaginations to picture me as
any kind of model." My guess is that she has
underestimated her male friends' imaginations.
I posted this cover of UK's Front Magazine because I like
the cover design - it's got a nice little
creative touch with the model pulling back the
backdrop to reveal the contents. Also, great use
of fonts. But most importantly, I think this
retouching is a lot closer to where we need to
be in the urban game. Note that you can still
see skin texture on Rosie's thigh (I included a
higher res scan for inspection - just click
image) in the photo.
Catrisa Turner is making a
mark for herself in the urban game. And just
like her beauty, her accomplishments sneak up on
you. In a short period she has been featured in
a Gucci Mane video
("Lemonade"), the 2010 Seagram's Gin Calendar,
for which she had signing duties, and was
recently featured on the cover of Sweets magazine.
This 23 year old Virgo is definitley the real
deal.
The first model is Kathleen Edge. The second is
an internet model named Bryci.
P.S. I was being faceteous in my blog title -
obviously black and white photography is timeless,
but it did suffer a slight setback with dawn of the
DSLR and digital photography.