Category: Portraits

Star St. Germain in Alamo Square

I know, I keep doing these shoots in the same park. But the light, it’s been so perfect! The weather, so lovely!

As previewed earlier, Star is an exceptional artist, a delight to photograph, and even more charming in person than any lens can capture. Although it certainly won’t keep us photographers from making the attempt.

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Accordion Calendar Shoot

Cindy Emch, who kindly posed for a tattoo story just a short time back, asked if I’d be interested in photographing her for a submission for the 2012 Accordion Babes Calendar. Absolutely!

These are a few of the photos we liked but which didn’t make the final cut to submit.

Star St.Germain

I’m off to shoot a wedding among the beautiful redwoods of Mendocino this weekend, but I’ll leave you with a teaser of a portrait set I shot with insanely talented artist Star. I’ve been a big fan of Star’s artwork and design for a long time, she’s recently begun producing music as well with her band ‘This Can’t End Well’. Check out their latest music video, directed by another photographer/video producer acquaintance, Chad Michael Ward. (His site may not be safe for work!)

Tattoo Story – Cindy Emch

Cindy Emch aka Emchy is an accordion player, poet and pop culture dork. She has three bands and you can learn all about them and her writing on her home page.

This tattoo was gotten for my wife on our anniversary. Always superstitious, I modified the grammar to read Love for the Life – incorporating a double meaning of love for life, and love for The Life – referencing the queer life. This to me makes it both universal and specific for who I am and who the tattoo was for. This tattoo was done by Mikal Gilmore at Black & Blue Tattoo in the Mission in San Francisco.

Wrist Stars
These were done by a friend who was just learning how to ink, they were her 3rd tattoo on actual human skin. They mark a moment where I chose to lead my life with more active choices and not just let life happen to me. These were done by Mikal Gilmore in a kitchen in an apartment in Noe Valley in San Francisco.

Grandparents Crest
This tattoo was specifically for my grandparents. I got it a couple of weeks after my grandmother had died. The heart with antlers represents the fact that I come from a family of hunters. The birds are my grandfather and grandmother’s favorite birds respectively. The acorns are a Michigan Red Oak and California Live Oak to represent where I am from and where I make home now. The stars number the months in a year. This is actually my favorite piece that I currently have. This tattoo was done by Scott Silvia at Black Heart Tattoo in the Mission in San Francisco.

Willem the spider was my first tattoo. Done in a closet made up to be a tattoo studio in the lower haight district of San Francisco, the image comes from the Lenore comic drawn by Roman Dirge. I had this image taped to my computer monitor of my day job for over a year before getting the ink done. I found the image charming and see Willem the spider as my protector. Willem was never named in the original comic strip, instead I named him based on a song from the Tom Waits / William Burroughs opera The Black Rider.

When I turned 30 I started taking my writing and my spoken word seriously. This was to remind me of who I am, and who I have been since I started writing poetry at age 7. This tattoo was done by Mikal Gilmore at Black & Blue Tattoo in the Mission in San Francisco.

Lee Dotson – Tattoo Story

I’ve wanted to photograph Lee ever since he showed me his recently completed tattoo at a friend’s housewarming party. He designed it himself, and the artwork fits his personality perfectly. You can check out more of Lee’s art and character designs at his personal art site here.

I thought about my tattoo for about seven years during which I prototyped out various designs by way of placing them on characters that I was designing for various video games at the time. From a design stand point the tattoo is an amalgamation of my influences as an artist. I’m largely a digital artist a love affair with art noveau, high contrast design work, technology, and things that go bump in the night. The application of the tattoo itself was done by the wonderful Idexa Stern at Black and Blue Tattoo who not only did an amazing job of making sure everything lined up and sat correctly on my body but also made the three months we spent together working on the tattoo more of a journey than a mere technical process.

While the pen nib on my right arm is the only directly symbolic portion of the tattoo it relates to who I am on several levels. The piece is largely hidden on a day to day basis because in many ways I’m a private person and I like being able to choose where and when and with whom I share various parts of myself. I love art and music that is layered and complex and I love that I now have this hidden layer that only people who are close to me know about. I realize that having photos of my tattoos on the internet runs somewhat counter to this idea but that highlights two other aspects of the tattoo that are important to me. The first is that a couple years ago the idea of shirtless pictures of me on the internet would have been absolutely mortifying so I love the fact that having them has made me more comfortable with myself. Secondly, I think it’s important to remember that the rules we live by are our own creation and as such we can change them and break them whenever we see fit.

Jamaica Dyer In Alamo Square Park

Sometimes everything just comes together, the weather, the location, and the model. This started out a simple headshot session but we decided to push it further and headed into the park to enjoy the perfect spring day. Believe it or not, this whole shoot only took about an hour.


Jamaica’s an extremely talented artist, and a longtime friend. We’ve begun collaborating on a super secret project, more about that as it develops.