Maya Guez in Dirty Show Art Expo.

I have recently joined a group of prominent female artists by the name of S.W.E.A.T( www.sweatartists.com/ ) in an effort to give a stage and draw attention to female point of view in Arts and erotic art and expression. This group is not a feminist group who fights against objectifying woman, equal opportunity and pay by picketing outside a government office, its a group that has a new age idea of what it means to be empowered threw the Arts, expression and examination of sexuality from a female point of view.... No one is objectifying you when YOU are the one expressing, creating, directing and selling yourself. Yes, many times we feel that woman artists don't get the same stage they deserve compared to fellow male artists and are on average paid 15% less for same type assignments... Yes, woman are very visible in media and entertainment but many time the feeling is behind every sexy cover girl there's some man sitting in an office counting the dollars he is making of her ass... lol There for in my eyes no matter how explicit or sexual an image of a woman is as long as it comes from a position of power, choice and business minded it can never be "degrading" or "exploitative"....

In the Dirty Show Art expo in Detroit you will see a whole section dedicated to the The "Society for Women in Erotic Art Today"(S.W.E.A.T.) female artists... a wall full of beautiful images of completely different styles all representing what we all love to celebrate: sexuality and the expression of love in the physical aspect.... sometime subtle and underlined and in other blunt and provocative. Not every piece is political or feminist in its context that is NOT the intention. We are presenting a diverse female point of view of sexuality and artistic expression, the viewer enjoys a wide range of styles knowing all the work presented was created by different woman in different ages from all over the world.

a few of my art works are featured in the show:

The show has been extended because of overwhelming demand and attendance and has been getting great reviews... 11-26th of FEB. dirtydetroit.com/
S.W.E.A.T is scheduled to have exhibitions in other shows and art institutes and i will keep you updates!

We Are The CURE

Charity Art campaign to raise HIV awareness in Africa shot by Photographer Maya Guez

Today is World AIDS Day, 1 Dec 2010. I wanted to do a special post about this topic from a slightly different angle... This is a close subject to my heart because it has touched my life knowing young people that has contracted HIV. Some of these individuals decided to go public to raise awareness despite the heavy cost to their personal life and privacy.

I was born in Israel in a small town, my mother was and still is a nurse that works in pediatrics. We lived in the workers dorms of the hospital and often after school I would visit her at work, Mom takes care of children with conditions such as HIV Aids, cancer and hepatitis... from my wonderful mother I learned the meaning of compassion and always admired her strength. Many of this Innocent children lost there struggle to HIV or cancer... I didn't understand how could she continue to work that job day in and day out with the mental ware it puts on a person. Many of the children with Aids were Ethiopian origin since Africa is the most affected part of the world with HIV, latley many celebrities have joined the fight to bring better health care and contribute to the education in that part of the world for HIV prevention.

Today, knowing people with this condition I can only do my small part with this blog to promote awareness and safe sex practice, please notice that I referred to HIV as a condition not a disease. At this day and age you can maintain a healthy living for many years with the right medical care, while there is no cure its impotent people know it is not a death sentence... its no different then any other serious illness that can be manged and lived with. I am IN NO WAY saying go out and have unprotected sex cause its "no big deal"... If you contract HIV it is still going to change your life.... its a permanent life style change-taking medications every day, being more sensitive to other illness/infections and outbreaks, choosing a sexual or romantic partner and letting them know and the possibility of never being able to have children of your own, these are all things someone with HIV has to deal with, But like everyone else people with HIV are entitled to LOVE that means giving and receiving love, sex, relationship, and acceptance... I have herd friends that have ignorantly referred to the condition as "The Monster" or other ignorant terms when speaking of someone with HIV. Saying they can never date someone who has it or that "these people" should immediately reveal their HIV status... Let me tell you one thing: LOVE CONCURS ALL. Even the risks of HIV. I have been a witness to this with a couple I know in which only one side has this condition. Anyone that uses such terms or in some way implies that theses HUMAN BEINGS are not entitled to anything and everything a human should enjoy in there life including Sex and Love is basically condemning themselves.... You never know where you will be tomorrow and you cant understand the challenges and tribulations of a person with HIV until you walk a mile in their shoes. And God said: "As you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me" Matthew 25. If you exclude people out of your life out of fear you are the one loosing out in the end of the day.

The fear campaign tactics that were launched since the 90is have done good on one hand promoting people to take resposiblity for their own bodies and practice safe sex but at the same time making it very difficult for people with this condition to live openly because of fear of being discriminated and isolated... Think carefully if you had this condition would you be telling it to every individual that approaches you knowing society perception of HIV? NO you would not because us as a society have made them wear this as a badge of shame. Individuals with HIV have to take the responsibility on themselves to practice only safe sex, maintain their viral load low and then also inform their partners of the risk and that is not an easy task when your afraid the minute you do so- your partner will be runing to the hills or violate your privacy. So today I am left with these tow messages:

Educate, promote and practice safe sex no matter what your partner say or how "healthy" or "honest" they look until you are both in a monogamous committed relationship and repeatedly got tested keep the condom on.

Secondly we must embrace love and accept the people who have this condition understand their situation and not let fear or ignorance be our guide.... Treat others the way you want to be treated and you will find that ALL of us deserve happiness and fulfillment and the human heart can overcome even the biggest physical challenges.

Charity Art campaign to raise HIV awareness in Africa shot by Photographer Maya Guez



Charity Art campaign to raise HIV awareness in Africa shot by Photographer Maya Guez

I have shot this Series a few years back, at the time I was asked to donate some of my work to be auctioned in an HIV art benefit I gladly offered one of theses pieces... it was meant to symbolically portray the pains of Africa... so much Beauty trapped inside so much Pain. The organizers rejected the piece for being too controversial and feared it will make people feel uncomfortable in what was supposed to be a light and fun event.... they wanted a fluff piece that would not be as disturbing. While I understood their point of view I think making people uncomfortable is what I want to do...! Make them think and take a minute out of their day to examine something beyond their daily life spectrum. Africa is the region of the world most affected by HIV and that is only one of the problems the continent has with poverty, education, corruption and hunger. This series fell back to the depth of my hard drive and I think now after all these years its time to bring it out for this blog. In these images I used Khadim who I met in Harlem "a real right of the boat proud African" lol not an experienced model. I was impressed with his painting like features and he agreed to model for me and let me tell you, every single image of his film was beautiful he could have given some tips to the pros. You can view the series on my site "personal" gallery or click on images.

Charity Art campaign to raise HIV awareness in Africa shot by Photographer Maya Guez

Working on these images brought me to tears a few times as I did the research to get the exact statistics I wanted to place regarding Africa. I also listed non profit organizations you might want to donate to or be active with.

Manuel Mendez hot import!

Today's spotlight is a new face in modeling, a charming young man and a Dominican hottie name Manuel A. Mendez... I met Manuel through some mutual friends, he expressed that he hesitated for many years if to pursue modeling but recently through the support and inspiration of his surrounding he decided to give this dream a chance to come true.... luckily for me he chose me to be his first (photographer lol).... our shoot was fun and i was impressed by the different sides of his personality he is able to bring out in the pictures, which led me to believe the man was a natural! The shoot was styled by the amazingly talented TY Hunter that hooked up Manuel with some hot wardrobe.
Manuel has unique features, a great athletic physic that is getting better and better each time we meet and he is very dedicated to looking and bringing his best in a photo shoot, he has a great combination of style, sexiness and child like innocence you will immediately fall in love with.... Since our shoot Manuel has been on his way knocking out photoshoot after photoshoot and has worked with some top photographers such as Rick Day, DeAndre DaCosta, and fernand&Victor photography.
Check out some shots from our shoot!

Style; More then just a name

Male model Style Bell also known as Sir Style was given a birth name that compelled him for great things: "a particular, distinctive, or characteristic mode of action or manner of acting, a mode of fashion, as in dress, esp. good or approved fashion; elegance; smartness". "an elegant, fashionable, or luxurious mode of living" and let me tell you he is definitely living up to the name.

I met style a few years ago, I was instantly impressed by his caramel skin, unique features and beautiful pearly white smile but I didn't know I was also going to have an inside look to the world of a person who has had his share of tribulations and hardships from a very young age but through his "style" of dedication, positivity and never stopping go was determined to look at life in a positive way, letting no limits or definitions hold him back from realizing his dreams. The man is truly dedicated to a healthy physic and living, its a life style for him that includes doing everything challenging from kick boxing and football to rock climbing and bicycling.... Style is a hard worker and it shows not only by his obvious great physic but also looking through Style body of work; modeling portfolio and commercial reel you see this "go getter" attitude has been applied across the board. Despite being slightly over 5'10 style has one of the most professional and diverse books you will ever see when sitting down with a male model, he has proved that although sometime a model might be a bit short or a bit too tall ultimately the proof is in the pudding. When someone shows capabilities such as he has as a print model they will be recognized and rightfully so. I'm glad to say Style has just been offered a contract with NTA modeling agency, a prominent model management agency in LA and I, along with many other photographers and Industry professionals such as Michael Maddox (www.dearmichaelmaddox.com/) are eagerly awaiting to see more from this great model and friend.

Here is style's comp card shot by yours truly Maya Guez (click to enlarge or download):

This is Style modeling for Andrew Nowell menswear (www.andrewnowell.com/) proving he looks fresh and sexy in and out of clothes shot by Maya Guez:

The importance of photo editing

This post is not only my take on photo editing but is also a guideline informational note for models and companies that wish to work with me, for those you might want to skip 2 paragraphs down to read the info.
I remember a large BW photo print of my grandmother as a child with her sister in my parents house, taking a closer look at the beautiful portrait that was about 85 years old i noticed the photographer manually retouched certain element in the photo by using a special color brush and black and white dyes that blended almost seamlessly in the photos, looking at the some more old family portraits I was made aware of the same things, as well as the "colorized" affect photographers manually used to enhanced the photo, making a black and white image into a colored one before color film was invented.... whats my point? Photo editing is and always was a part of photography, it used to be much more limited and hard to do convincingly but now days in the digital age with great user friendly programs the possibilities are endless. If your just color correcting or retouching a skin imperfection/a hair fallen out of place or if your creating a whole new backdrop and doing intricate composite work almost every image now days could use a little adjustment to reach its perfect state.
Good photo editing is by no means necessarily a heavy one. Subtle changes to color and contrast and undetectable skin retouching while maintaining the textures of skin and materials in the shots are often the best and my favorite; It provides the image that balanced finished look while maintaning its orignal look and feel. When shooting with the intention of editing I shoot in a way that will provide me as much color and gradient information possible in the shot so then after in the post work i can take it to any direction i want. Also, I don't pay special mind to things such as a reflector or light fixture in the shot because I know they can be easily edited or cropped out and my main focus is just making sure my subject is well lit and posed, this was not how I did things in the past when i shot with the intention of going straight from film to photo print, knowing that there will be no editing I was much more careful regarding such background objects as well as camera settings and the vibrancy and contrast the specific film would provide.

It seems although most of us photographers are quite aware of all this, our clients some times are not. Numerous times I had clients look at the raw images off the camera and say: "This looks amazing it doesn't need editing it looks retouched already!" This became a problem when clients either posted and published flat unedited images or even worse tried to edit them themselves.... my god the HORROR! lol... You should see how my face cringed when I first laid my eyes on a client picture he butchered doing his little photoshop tutorial experiment and topped things of by placing my credit on the image. I have even had clients that opted to post online edited right beside unedited images from same set almost like a "before and after"! they fail to understand that only makes them look bad.... To me its like running a 40 mile Marathon and then 50 feet before u finish pulling out a lawn chair sitting down and while everyone else passes u by to the finish line u just say to yourself "I'm just gonna sit here and chill and maybe when i finish chilling I'll start running in the opposite direction" lol.

I am very conscious about my reputation as a photographer who produces the utmost high quality imagery and that's why I have a strict quality control policy to make sure what ever is put out there under my name matches the final high quality product that people come to expect from my company. Having a photo with floor showing, the edge of light stand or fan or blue tape on wall as well as skin, hair or silhouette imperfections or less then perfect cropping of the image can make a photographer look sloppy or armature, theses things can easily and quickly be edited but when left in they just "kill" the shot.

That is the reason many photographers now days do not give out any unedited images and will only provide clients with a few final edited images they chose. I provide my clients a CD with easily viewable proofs they can go threw (just like people used to look threw a contact sheet in film camera days) so they can pick the images they would want edited and printed out (instead of trying to review the 90 megabit file each of original raw image, proofs are easily browsed on any photo program).... When I say "I do not release unedited images and proofs are for the clients selection process only as a preview" that's exactly what it means. The proof as indicated on it is a VIEWING SAMPLE ONLY not to be published or posted anywhere on any medium. After choosing images to be edited client receives another CD with the high res edited images as well as 9 by 12in prints for a portfolio presentation or as a color reference for press. Editing is priced per picture depending on whats needed and agreed with client.
On a general note every image we see on an album cover or magazine layout had some level of editing, even the most gorgeous perfect 19 year old supermodels and superstar recording artists need a bit of a touch up...! so if you want to compete on that level you shouldn't cut corners. You do not need a slew of images, just a few strong HIGH IMPACT perfect ones..... its not about choosing 30 images that look almost the same with the same wardrobe and set design... that is boring and repetitive. Choosing 1-3 best images from a set is quite sufficient. Its quality not quantity. Iconic images don't come in batches they come in singles.

What Artists and Models need to know!

Being in this industry you must have thick skin, Actually, being in this world you must have thick skin! I see every day models, actors and other professional in this industry trying to leave their mark on the world. In every persons life we will encounter the nonbelievers, haters and doubters, you must first know who you are and what you are capable of, and its true, you must first love yourself in order to survive the constant competition and criticism thrown at you especially when it comes to the entertainment and fashion Industries.

While a measure of realistic perspective is important, in most cases the people who doubt your abilities are the ones who doubt their own: If they truly believe they can achieve anything they set their mind to then why wouldn't they believe others can do that as well? They would try to make you feel like your not good enough, or that they are better then you... They would find anything to hold above your head - your black, your white, your too skinny or too fat, your gay, your strait, you been to jail, your an immigrant, your too young or too old, your too short or too tall.... the list goes on and on... most of the time they don't even think what they hold above your head is that bad they just want you to think they do. Their objective is to make you feel less then what you are and what you could be. So let me say this; NO ONE is better then you. NO ONE is higher then you, we are all human beings created equal, we all come and leave this world the exact same way, someone can be better at something then you but he is never better then you. You are a world within yourself. We all posses different qualities theses qualities can't always be measured or put in a scale, for one person your a goddess for the next your trash, so which one is it? It is how you see yourself that counts and how you apply yourself with hard work and dedication to achieving your goals and potential.

The fact one photographer has his photo on the cover of Vogue and one has his image in someone's home gallery doesn't mean one image is "artistically better" then another, it just means it served that purpose better. So don't be discouraged and don't measure yourself by other people's standards measure it by your own.
In the history of art and music there are so many people who had tremendous talent some known and some unknown but the people who are ultimately remembered are not the ones that fallowed the rules but the ones who broke them, not the ones who were up to standards but the ones who redefined the standards. The ones who changed the game up are remembered because they fallowed their true artistic vision and by doing so, up against the wind, made you have a new point of view of things, refreshing and opening your mind. They took the risk of not being understood, never being appreciated and validated by the majority and mainstream because they defined themselves, not let others defined them.
So fallow your heart people! The only measure of success is the one you set for yourself, so regardless if you made a million or not, regardless if you made the cover and everyone knows your name or not, if you bravely fallowed your heart you are a successes.

Here are a few of the questions from my interview in KRAVE magazine that might shed some light about my views on modeling, photography and the industry:

Q: Are there any photo secrets or tips that you can share with models?

A: Be confident and aware of your body - its advantages and disadvantages. Know your angles. Don't try to be something you're not; celebrate YOUR type of beauty. I don't like when models try to force themselves into a body type that is not naturally theirs just to fit a mold of what the industry considers fashionable or beautiful. There is more than one kind of beauty and there's more than one type of modeling. You have to realize that there are a lot of beautiful people that are not "model material" and there's a lot of models who are not "beautiful" so don't use modeling as a validation of being attractive; that is something you should feel from within regardless of if you can or cannot be a model. And don't take it so seriously, have fun with it!

Q: What inspires you and who are some of your favorite photographers?
A:Talent and exotic, unconventional beauty inspires me. As a visual artist, provoking a new point of view drives me and photographers who are able to make you find the beauty in things that went unnoticed is inspiring. Art is meant to open your mind and provoke emotions by giving you new perspective and pressing the right buttons. Sometime simple elements can wow you... for example when Herb Ritts shot Djimon Hounsou with a black octopus on his head and at first sight you didn't know if it’s his hair, a fashion accessory or a part of his body. Also, the way David LaChapelle makes you see aesthetics, structure and richness in his chaotic busy compositions and colors.
The picture above is of BBW plus model Velvet D'amour. As I was bronzing her 300 pounds hips of fun on our new shoot - this time for a "VOUGE curvy" story about her(Vogue curvy is a division of Italian Vogue for curvy woman) www.vogue.it/en/vogue-curvy I was yet reminded how fallowing your own path can lead to great success. In her late 30is this vibrate beautiful woman has modeled and walked the runway for designers John Galliano and Jean Paul Gaultier, as well as been in acclaimed movies in Cannes and Sundance/Tribeca film festivals and a reality hit show in Europe. She is also having an exhibition of her work as a photographer currently showing in upstate NY... Truly sexy inside and out this woman is an inspiration.
www.facebook.com/velvet.damour
http://www.velvetography.com/
www.modelmayhem.com/velvetdamour