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About Me

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Obsidian is a type of volcanic glass, incandescent earthsblood cooled and fashioned by the forebears in lands south into instruments for bridging and playing the polarities of blood and light, man and god, lost in the tides of turning and the bearded conquests. They aren’t my memories but they sing nonetheless, and though I’m still a stranger here my lens often suffices as my sole handshake. Mithras was the god of light and transactions and handshakes and bull’s blood, the Roman Lord of the Right Hand, and every opening and closing of the shutter repeats the Mithraic act of shaking hands with the sun, and even 1/8000th of a second completes a 93 million mile itinerary, and maybe I’ll make a soft bed for a weary traveler through an obsidian sky. I was born circa 35 years ago in Santiago, Chile, to American diplomats who met in Haiti under the light of the loa and the shadow of a tyrant with red eyes named Duvalier. My earliest visual impression of heaven involved copious amounts of blood and green cloth. I was about 6 or 7 in an upstairs hallway in our house in Lagos, Nigeria, and was looking through a family photo album going right back to when I was born. I don't know if it's something my parents told me or whether it was something I put together myself, but I had it in my head that since we go to heaven when we die, just as surely we must have come from there to begin with. So I saw these pictures that were of a very small me, covered in blood and gore and screaming and being held by these dark-green-clad angels whose faces were also covered by green masks and whose hands were covered in blood from the exit wound I left in my mother’s belly. A hematic heaven in a cheap snapshot: at this early date even, the camera’s captured instant resolved my sole foundational polarity of blood and light which was to find conscious articulation in my thinking later in my adult life. Even my most rarified, most surreal images begin simply with actuality, a thing, something possessing a body extending in space and hanging in time that was lighted by the sun or by a cheap facsimile thereof, something seen by human eyes at a certain time and place, perceived through a certain state of mind and body, and thereafter rendered snap click into an object of relative tangibility and duration for others to see with their eyes and hold in their minds in turn. This is how I remind myself that: “eternity is in love with the productions of time.” And time is in love with a good story. Note that all images in my "Pics" are copyrighted by myself. Please do not use any of them in any way without my permission. I can be found elsewhere online at:Flickr DeviantArt ModelLaunch #43865 Model Mayhem #177731
Credits:Winner of a Merit Award in B&W Magazine's 2006 Portfolio Contest (in the August 2006 "Special Summer Issue"). Pages 171-170 are my work.
Solo show "Photophilia" at the Back Alley Gallery, Oracle, Arizona, September 2007.

Rates:Freelance - Day: $495 Freelance - Half Day: $295 Portrait Sitting Fees:$66 for 1 or 2 subjects (first hour, $33 per hour thereafter). $88 for groups of 3 to 4 (first hour, $44 per hour thereafter). $111 for groups of 5 to 7 (first hour, $66 per hour thereafter).Portrait Prints:$22 per sheet (one sheet = one 8x10, or two 5x7’s, or four 4x6’s). $33 per 11x14. $44 per 16x20. larger sizes and matting/framing options available upon request.Additional Services:$33 for every 10 images of web-ready images (whether emailed or on CD-ROM) – all-inclusive of normal post-production and re-touching (adjusting skin tone, removing blemishes). Extensive, detailed and artistic digital photomanipulation is $111 per image.Available for weddings/engagements, modeling portfolios, band promotions and concert photography, and other special functions. Please inquire for a price quote.
The "Twelve Days of Christmas" part 1: A study in Christian numerical symbolism
http://www.examiner.com/x-33027-LA-Christian-Spiri...
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My newest article for Examiner.com, looking at Christian numerical symbolism based on the 12 Days of Christmas.

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

"Companions, the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators, the creator seeks--those who write new values on new tablets. Companions, the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest. But he lacks a hundred sickles: so he plucks ears and is annoyed. Companions, the creator seeks, and such as know how to whet their sickles. Destroyers they will be called, and despisers of good and evil. But they are the harvesters and those who celebrate. Fellow creators, Zarathustra seeks, fellow harvesters and fellow celebrants: what are herds and shepherds and corpses to him?"
See also above for my list of current projects.
Above all else, I intend to have K&C of my HGA.

My Blog

Update

It's been a trying time since I moved to Venice to be with my wife and make a go of my art here, although Kate and I have grown in our love and support for one another daily. Though I've been looking ...
Posted by on Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:12:00 GMT

Married!

Kate and I did the deed this past Saturday the 26th. "The birth of individuality is ecstasy; so also is its death. In love the individuality is slain. Who loves not love?" - Crowley, Liber 333
Posted by on Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:55:00 GMT

The Dolphin and Its Own - Thelemic "Self-Help"

From Chapter II of Liber LXV:37. Behold! the Abyss of the Great Deep. Therein is a mighty dolphin, lashing his sides with the force of the waves.38. There is also an harper of gold, playing infinite t...
Posted by on Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:36:00 GMT

Commentary on the HGA by Bill Heidrick

"In Tiphareth the aspirant attains to no less a state than that of conversation with his Holy Guardian Angel, his Jechidah, 'The permanent principle behind the conflicting opinions.'" --...
Posted by on Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:22:00 GMT

The photographer and his muse and fiancee, Kate

...
Posted by on Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:43:00 GMT

The Sovereignty of Marriage, by T. Polyphilus

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Consider briefly the history of marriage as an institution in the Christian West, and how it feeds into Thelema. Marriage had existed in pagan Euro...
Posted by on Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:32:00 GMT

Just in case you missed the bulletin:

Kate Chesney and I are officially engaged!
Posted by on Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:28:00 GMT

River Red Cloth and White Grail

...
Posted by on Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:10:00 GMT

Crazy Talk, Vol. II: Sundogs

Dreamt on a desert highway: Drums. Loud rolling thunder, a crescendo and decrescendo of tympani accompany towering spires of flame:      "Play, Man, unto me your drums, th...
Posted by on Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:07:00 GMT

The most beautiful woman Ive ever seen.

Model and photo by Kate. Post-processing by Michael.
Posted by on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:59:00 GMT