A SELEKZION SELECTION.
A selection of images from the 2011 spring/summer collection for Nikita Selekzion, shot in Mexico last May. While we were shooting, we witnessed - appropriately enough - THE brightest shooting star I’ve ever seen. Which scared the shit out of me, since the beach we were on sits squat in the middle of the crater created by the nasty asteroid that killed all them dinosaurs. So, we nearly went extinct for these pictures. I hope you can appreciate that.
All clothing by Nikita. Hair & makeup by Steinunn Þórðar. Models: Andrea, Gabby & Isabelle. Photographic assistant: Charlie Kelly. Post production by Jamie Farquharson.
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NEON NOIR
Here’s a shoot I did in Iceland earlier this year in collaboration with the super talented Ellen Lofts and Steinunn Thordardottir. The models are Tinna Bergs and Maria Birta.
Click here for the story in Contributor Magazine.
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“FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING RETARDS!”
I just dug up these images I shot in 2006. Silvia Night epitomized all that was honest and pure about the excess and narcissism of the Icelandic boom years, culminating in her appearance on her country's behalf at the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens. I think of her a lot these days.
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FELL ASLEEP AND WOKE UP IN A ROBERT PALMER VIDEO.
THE BEACH ON AUCTION IN SUPPORT OF THE SANTA AGUILA FOUNDATION.
On the 19th of May, The Santa Aguila Foundation (www.coastalcare.org) is organizing a fundraiser at the Hermes store in Beverly Hills. I am donating a print from my series, The Beach, to be auctioned off in support of the cause.
The foundation is spearheaded by Olaf and Eva Guerrand-Hermes, who have generously supported me in the past by acquiring a number of my prints.
The Beach was shot on a remote peninsula on the Westfjords of Iceland in October 2002. I brought a team of ten people out there on a borrowed coach that had been turned into a sleeper. We got there at 3 in the morning and drove the coach straight into a ditch. Being too tired to deal with it in the dark, we went to sleep.
The following morning it started snowing. We spent the day shooting on the beach, but because of the cold weather we could only shoot in short bursts before the girls turned purple. Fortunately there was an old geothermal pool down by the sea where we kept the girls warm between shots. By the time we finished, the problem of getting the coach out of the ditch remained.
A local farmer brought his tractor and pulled us out, but in the process the coach crashed into the tractor, severely damaging both vehicles. At that point it was quite late in the evening and the already treacherous mountain roads were iced over. The coach was equipped with tires that struggled on wet tarmac, let alone on the steep and icy mountain roads, so the hero farmer ended up pulling the coach over the mountain pass.
He took us to an old herring factory that moonlights as an inn, where we cooked loads of pasta and got drunk. After promising the farmer that I'd sort out the repair for his traumatized tractor, we headed back towards Reykjavík early the next morning in our severely banged up coach.
It took me a year to pay off the damages to the two vehicles, in installments, but the pictures turned out great.
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LENNY IS LIKE A RADIOHEAD ALBUM.
This is Björn, my Los Angeles hero and savior. He lives in Highland Park with his dog, Lenny. Björn says Lenny is like a Radiohead album. At first you don't like it and think it's an abomination, then you slowly get used to it and eventually it consumes you and fills you with an overpowering feeling of love. Below is a picture of the nasty looking Lenny (black) posing with his very own, absurdly cute french bulldog, Moog (white). You can guess who gets all the pussy. Oh, and Lenny actually attacks postal workers. Highly resentful of authority, I think the uniform sets him off. Not surprisingly, he and Björn get along swimmingly.
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In New Orleans everyone is nice.
Here are a few images from the last shoot I did with Nikita. We spent 3 weeks in New Orleans last fall, shooting the fall/winter collection for 2010. In New Orleans everyone is nice. Seriously. It's probably one of the most welcoming cities I've ever been to. You should go there. You'll love it. I'm not getting paid for writing this.
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“I DON’T KNOW IF YOU REALIZE THIS, BUT YOU KINDA STAND OUT…”
I’m about to go on another Nikita shoot (www.nikitaclothing.com). Don’t know where we’re going yet, but here are some snaps from the last summer shoot. It was the 7th shoot I’ve done with them and I love those weird, intense trips we take. Usually Rúnar & Heiða, who run the company, throw a dart at a world map and off we go. This time they were aiming for The Bahamas and the dart hit Tampa. So we went to Miami.
One day we were shooting in what we thought was this really picturesque area: run down houses, all painted in pastels and lined up along massive, wide streets. We parked the cars and started shooting on a street corner. After a while I realized certain cars were cruising by us veeeery slowly with alarming regularity. I was starting to feel a little apprehensive when a police car drove up and asked us where we were from.
"I don't know if you realize this, but you kinda stand out."
Waving around expensive electronics while hanging out with a bunch of cute girls, who are feverishly dancing to gangster rap while simultaneously peeling off their clothes on a street corner in one of Miami's roughest ghettos was not his idea of blending in, apparently.
He told us there had been 5 armed robberies that same morning in that same neighborhood and we'd be well advised to get the hell out of there, fast.
"Welcome to America," he added sarcastically before driving off.
So we drove off to the Fashion District, where the girls could dance without being shot and raped.
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Who? Me? Model?
We spotted Tashauna on Hallandale Beach while shooting swimwear for the Nikita streetwear collection SS/2010. She was there with her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s mom and immediately caught our eyes. She’s from Jamaica, but lives in Liberty City in Miami, a seriously dodgy area that we had been politely escorted out of a few days earlier by the police, who were afraid we'd be murdered. Stupid tourists. She’d never modeled before and looks like she could kick your butt. Or bust a cap in your ass.
BLOODY WELL SORT OUT YOUR WEBSITE!
Since I take my camera everywhere and consequently need a place to stash all the pictures that keep piling up, I’ll gradually be trickling them into this section, along with other stuff that I deem worthy.
And since my mate Crispin has been telling me for years to “bloody well sort out your website,” I’m dedicating this first entry to him.
Crispin is a tropical creature that thrives best in temperatures well above 35° C, in areas bounteous with food and drink. These rare and intimate pictures are taken in his natural habitat.
