New Quote from Model David Davila

Regarding working with various photographers, this is what Chicago model David Davila had to say about working with me in a recent interview with BLISS Male Mag:

Jay was an energetic guy and liked to do things in a more impromptu fashion. It worked well for us when we had our shoot.

David, for the record, was a joy to work with who was prompt, takes poses very naturally, takes direction well, and has a good personality. That worked well for our photo shoot, which was literally put together with just an hour or so notice - quite impromptu!

New Photo Art Work

Graceful, artful, theatrical, powerful, and stunning are some of the words that come to mind after working on the images from the set of which this image is a part - and that's just what the model brought to these! Model Jabari Ajee and I were immediately inspired by the location and the light. His innate talent at striking just the right pose for any given setting is evident here as well as all the other images of this shoot - and this was unlike anything he'd done before - and it was a rare opportunity for me to be able to do as well. A special thanks from us both goes out to Cincinnati artist Anthony Luensman.

New! Small Business Packages!

Small businesses are looking to save money any way they can during these hard economic times. Money used for advertising needs to be used as wisely as possible.

Photography used right can go a long way towards bringing new customers through the door. I understand that and have assembled 2 packages inclusive of photo shoots and edits, even custom layout services incorporating a businesses artwork and text for sign layouts - and the banner signage! The best part? Both packages are under $500! Yes, the signage (up to 33" x 78") is included!

Check out this sign done for Ride Renovations:

This is ideally suited for small businesses ranging from boutique shops to restaurants to service providers looking to build their business.

Contact me at j.plogman@gmail.com or call 513.388.7001 for the complete details!

Latest shoot with Mark

Mark posed before my lenses for the first time a little over a year ago. Since then he's hit the gym big time and his physique is all the better for it. He's about to leave for a new life in California and wanted to get in another shoot before going, so we met a week ago and did this shoot. Even as I was snapping away both he and I knew we were getting some incredible images to add to both our portfolios. I'll miss the chance to work with Mark again here, but I'm guessing if I find myself in California, he'll want to get something together...and there might even be a sofa for me to sleep on if I need it. Best of luck out there, Mark!

Amongst the Ruins

I, like many of you reading this, probably never thought of finding abandoned, decrepit, collapsing buildings in Hawaii, but there's at least one. I ought to know: I spent a couple hours during my vacation there shooting in just such a place with model Caleb Shinobi. Here's Caleb checking out a roof in need of a little repair!

New Post of My Work at 2(x)istence.com

Once again the fine folks at 2(x)ist have included my work in their blog site. Model Brandon Schinaman is featured in this latest post.

The Week in Review

Wow...what a week! Not only have I been working on organizing what looks like will be two amazing shoots, the good people at 2(x)ist chose to use not one, but two of my photos on their blog in the same week along with those from three of my favorite photographers (Joseph Smileuske, Simon Le, and Kevin McDermott) and one of my favorite models (Eric Rensburg). Check it out here. Life is good. peace & love

Jay Plogman Photography Featured at 2(x)ist

New feature at 2xistence.com: model Jabari Ajee captured by Jay Plogman Photography!

Meet the Models: Njames

For many months in 2008 back in Manila, one of the models I worked most frequently with was a young man who went by the name of Njames (pronounced as if it were spelled as "N. James"). He has a quite endearing personality, heart of gold, and a remarkable presence in front of the camera. With some models a photographer has to work hard to get what is needed out of them for the shot; with Njames the photographer just has to try to keep up with him. Like the Energizer Bunny, he just keeps going and going....


Njames left the Philippines in December 2008 for a job as a sailor, working aboard a cargo vessel plying the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean, and Baltic Seas. Now sailing along South America, he has taken camera in hand and produced some fine photographs of his own.

See more of him here.

Meet the Models: Jerwin Mercado

This is a story of networking, knowing the right people, and being in the right place at the right time!

It was 2007. I had just moved to Manila, Philippines at the very end of March. Just eight short weeks into my Philippine adventure I find myself clear on the other side of the island of Luzon at Pueblo por la Playa resort in Lucena with film director Felino Tañada and Jerwin Mercado, one of the stars of his latest film Hanggang Dito Na Lamang at Maraming Salamat.

Felino is a friend of a friend I had met just a few weeks earlier. Knowing Felino needed a photographer for a photo spread publicity piece about Jerwin, my new friend gave him my contact information. So Felino calls me up and early one morning a couple days later I'm being driven across the island to do the photo shoot!

Jerwin was no stranger to the camera, which was a big help as he was a pretty quiet and shy guy the day of the shoot. With a little direction from his trusted director acting also as my assistant in set up and lighting, we pulled off a wonderful all day shoot. Fourteen hours later I was back in own bed, weary but very satisfied with the work we'd produced that day.

The shame of it all is Icon magazine (the magazine for which we were shooting these images) went under just days after our shoot! The photos were never able to be used to promote Jerwin and the film before it opened. Actually, we did manage to have some prints exhibited at a local club in Manila along with a trailer for the film, but it wouldn't be until a few months before I was to return to the US in 2009 that the images would make it to a magazine, promote Jerwin and the film, now out on DVD...and even that issue came out a year late!


I owe my friend, Felino, and Jerwin many thanks. The initial response to the images from this shoot helped bring attention to me and my work, encouraging others to work with me. For that I am eternally grateful; especially to Jerwin, for being so easy to work with...and a tremendously good looking model.

Summer Portrait Specials - July Bookings

Jay Plogman Photography announces 3 special summer portrait packages. I'm now booking for July shoot dates.

All packages include:

-Pre-shoot consultation
-2 - 3 hour photo shoot session
-Individuals or families/groups of up to 4 persons
($40 fee for each additional person)
-Preview and selection appointment

Makeup artist services also available upon request. There is an extra charge for this service.

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PRINT PACKAGE

From your 3 favorite poses you'll receive:

-2ea 8x10 prints
-2ea 5x7 prints
-8 wallet prints
-Free digital file of each pose purchased*
(File is low resolution suitable for internet display)
*Additional files available at $10 each.

Regularly $200
JULY SPECIAL: $150!

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SHOW OFF ONLINE PACKAGE

Up to 15 of your favorite images will be saved to CD in low resolution suitable for posting on Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, Multiply and other internet sites.

Regularly $280
JULY SPECIAL: $230!

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ULTIMATE SHOW-OFF PACKAGE

This takes the Show Off Online Package one step further! You get up to 15 of your favorite images saved to CD in both low resolution and high resolution file sizes! This way, one file can be used for online applications and the other can be used for prints! Each size is saved to CD in separate, specially-marked folders for ease of locating.

Regularly $350
JULY SPECIAL: $300!

Remember, no matter which package you choose, all shoots include the following retouching/editing of all poses selected.
-brightening of eyes
-whitening of teeth
-removal of skin blemishes
-minimize appearance of wrinkles
-adjustment of shadows
-improve brightness
-optimization of color and tone

*Featured model: Billy Mosura

Simmi

Simmi is a 21 year old model based in Cincinnati, OH. Full of life, energetic, and enthusiastic, he's a joy to shoot. You can see more of Simmi's work in his Model Mayhem portfolio here.

The Lucky 7

The Lucky 7 was my first group concept shoot. Done while I was living in Manila, Philippines in 2008, it came about as a response to the awful stereotyped portrayal of Asian men. No emaciated teen twinks with androgynous looks. No nerdy guys with pocket protectors. No Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan wannabees. Instead, here's a what-you-see-is-what-you-get, honest group of guys who are super fun, super hyper, and baring it all to show Asian men are sexy too.

These images and an accompanying article were published in the Philippines' only online gay magazine, Outrage. Here's the article and some of the pics from the shoot:

“They’re still decent,” Jay Plogman says, smiling, “so you can interview them, if that’s what you want.” We were in a studio in Makati City, dropping by, as requested, to supposedly see him in action, taking photographs that will “highlight Filipino men,” he says, since “it really doesn't matter if they are gay or not, (but) it's no secret that Asian men, in general, are marginalized when it comes to their presence in (the) media. Even here in the Philippines, only white men or the fairest-skinned mestizos are deemed worthy of being in advertising campaigns, magazines, et cetera. So I hope that through (these) photographs, people will begin to see that guys (and girls) can have dark skin, et cetera, and be really good looking, and worthy of the same presence.” Casually garbed in dark blue T-shirt on top of dark shorts, he was Sunday personified, even as he was quite adamant in saying that he prefers for his photographs not to be seen as “gay” or have necessarily anything to do with the gay community, since in photographs he takes, even those “inherently gay,” he, more than anything, says something about the people portrayed in it, or the characters played in it, “in a positive light, showing how normal it all is,” he says.

He then excused himself, walking barefoot towards the inside of the studio, off to check his equipment. His boyfriend Edson stays behind to make small talk on how the shoot should, hopefully, help shift impressions on beauty – a theme Plogman almost always approaches with gusto, especially here in the Philippines, where he is based now. Padding back to where we were, if only to inform us that the photoshoot is about to start, Plogman starts giving some instructions to his models – Edson moves to where they were, to help out, I suppose, as off they went to put flesh in Plogman’s vision. But how, exactly, did the country end up having an adept photographer cum advocate in the person of Plogman?


STARTING YOUNG

Everything started when he was younger, when Plogman recalls getting excited by photography, especially “when I (saw) my father bring out his 35 millimeter (mm) camera to take pictures on a family vacation, (and) I knew they’d be something special – there was something about that camera and the images it took that I perceived as better than what my mom and I got from our 126 and 110 cameras. Dad's was a ‘real’ camera, and I couldn't wait until I was old enough to have one of my own,” he says. He got “old enough” to have his own camera when he was in high school, “when I saved up enough to buy a used Fujica 35 mm all-manual single-lens reflex (SLR) camera.” It helped, too, that one of his high school teachers was an avid photographer. In hindsight, Plogman “originally took up photography because I loved to photograph trains. They're still one of my favorite things to photograph – nature and what I loosely term ‘travel’ are others. Yes, people are also some of my favorites, but shooting nature, architecture, or trains is very spiritual and therapeutic. The zen calm of nature, geometry of architecture (and the play of light on both), and the power of a train. So (it’s) work I get to do alone, just myself and the camera.” In college, Plogman studied visual arts, familiarizing himself with theories and practice of, among others, painting, drawing, theory, history, sculpture, and, yes, photography. “The lessons I learned from all of those disciplines are employed every time I pick up the camera to take a picture,” he now says, adding that good knowledge base is important since “photography today can be a daunting profession to enter, since every time you move, you're starting over from nothing. There are the established professionals working in every city in every country to compete with, plus it seems every person who buys a digital SLR camera thinks that makes them a professional photographer.” Among Plogman’s credited influences are “masters including O. Winston Link in railroad photography, Robert Mapplethorpe in nature and nude, Nan Goldin in real-life portraits, and, lately, Richard de Chazal for manipulative photographic work. I'm also heavily influenced by writers such as Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde; and the comedian Jack Benny. I know it isn't readily apparent how they affect my photography, but they do,” he says. Plogman recalls, too, how, “for my first 17 years in photography, the only things digital were watches,” he says, noting how “digital imaging is in many ways a great advance, but it is also a great obstacle. I'm not the type of person who takes to computer features easily. Personal computer (PC) or Mac, none of it is intuitive at all to me. Going from film to digital and using editing software instead of simply reading a negative or slide and making corrections in printing has been a long process for me. I'm so lucky I can use both, and I feel the strength I and other pre-digital photographers have over those who know only digital.” He adds: “With film (especially when shooting slide films like Fujichrome or Kodachrome), a photographer has to do everything right the moment the picture is taken. As a result, those ‘old timers’ get it right on the first take. Those photographers in Luneta are FAR more talented than the public gives them credit for; and using equipment often over 30 years old. People today think of a camera as obsolete after a couple years.”

FOREIGN LOCALIZED

“The Philippines is fascinating, depressing, delightful, and much more... much like any other place I've been. That's not to say the Philippines is the same as other places; IT ISN'T! But I've traveled to many other countries around the world and have always found some quality in each that I admired or thought should be adopted in the US to make life there better,” Plogman says.



BEAUTY IS EVERYWHERE.

Jay Plogman believes he offers a different point of view (call it Western, if you may, he says) in his photographs.

Interestingly, Plogman says that the Philippines, especially Metro Manila, “is the gayest place I've ever been. It makes San Francisco look straight. My boyfriend and I have never seen so many obviously gay guys in one place, holding hands on dates in Gateway and Glorietta Malls (GAYway and GAYetta),” he says, smiling.

Not that the local gay community, if it can be called that (“I'm disappointed it isn't more of a community; just obnoxious little clans,” Plogman says), is all ideal. For one, “it would help if gay Filipinos would just admit they are gay to begin with. One gay social networking site I checked had seven of 10 Filipinos claiming to be bisexual. The Philippines is the only country on this planet to claim such. Most other countries have only a single-digit percentage of people claiming to be bisexual. Don't even bother mentioning the variety of ‘meanings’ Filipinos give to the word ‘bisexual’! That's bullshit, (for there) is only 1 meaning: you are sexually attracted to BOTH men and women. Gay Filipinos will never enjoy respect, tolerance, or acceptance until they can admit to themselves they are gay,” Plogman says.

And while “it's 2008 and it has never been easier to meet other gay people; no longer is the gay community one that exists just underground, in the shadows of alleys in the night,” due to the “outdated, bigoted views of the Roman Catholic Church, so many Filipinos still can't live their lives the way that's best for them and their happiness.”

And while he laments that like in cities like New York, Metro Manila's gay community suffers from the problem of guys constantly on the search for someone better than the boyfriend they already have (“Look guys, there's ALWAYS going to be someone better-looking, richer, et cetera. Get over it. FIND and LOVE the one who LOVES YOU”), he is still glad to have been “blessed to have met mostly great people here. I've met my share of cheating, lying, petty, gossips as well; but the number of talented, educated, interesting, caring, lovely people far outnumbers them,” he says.

LOOKING FORWARD

Plogman, who admits loving writing (“I blog – I realize that sounds odd, and it makes me no money, but I love to write, and my blog allows me to share my experiences here in the Philippines”), recalls one time, in 2000, when a neighbor asked “if I'd shoot him and his boyfriend having sex. That wasn't as weird as waiting while I listened to him try to ask the question. He was so nervous, I think it took him almost five minutes,” he laughs.

He tries to be flexible, though, even if “there are clients who I'll refuse due to uneasy feelings I get around them. Some don't want to be photographed; they want me. There are also those who ask for the unreasonable, or those who ask for particular types of photography I don't have the proper equipment to shoot.”

This early, “I can't say I have had any one defining achievement that has been more satisfying than any others. I look at each shot as an achievement. If I'm able to capture some unique aspect of each person, interpret something or some place in a unique or special way that says something to others, and have people react positively to these, that's achievement enough,” Plogman says.

For now, though, the focus remains in coming up with good pieces – not just advocating beauty, but advocating advocacies, a seemingly easy enough endeavor for Plogman who says his style is quite straightforward. “The fact
that I don't need to do this give me a competitive edge,” he says, “and since I
don't need to do this, I am a lot less stressed. That also allows me to charge less than other photographers here. I haven't the long-established reputation some have, and I know my time in the Philippines will end in approximately a year; so I needn't charge higher rates. I'm not looking to take away anyone else's business, anyway. Just so I just charge enough to make it worth my while.”

Back in the studio, shooting almost naked Filipinos, Plogman quips how he’s looking at coming up with a book (“Hopefully, the images I create during my time here will be something I can organize into a book in the future”), he says. That’s relatively long way away still, however.

So for now, he shoots “in a style that is from a different point of view – call it Western, if you will,” highlighting how Filipinos can really be beautiful.

Now, if only Filipinos start seeing themselves the way Plogman sees them.

Scheduling Shoots for May and June Now!

Photo/Makeup Packages Now Available

Contact me: 513.388.7001 j.plogman@gmail.com

Solitary Bride

Subject: Christina

Makeup: Galvin Mason

Location: Cincinnati's Parker Woods

Contact me at j.plogman@gmail.com or 513.388.7001 for packages Galvin and I are offering!

Peacock Princess

Springtime shoot with Jenn.

Makeup by Galvin Mason.

For details on photo/makeup packages with Galvin and I, contact me.

j.plogman@gmail.com

513.388.7001

Ethereal Beauty - Christina

More work with makeup artist Galvin Mason.

To learn more about our service packages, contact me.

j.plogman@gmail.com
513.388.7001

Meet the Models: Carlo

I thought I'd go back in time and add a little background story to the faces of the subjects pictured throughout my portfolio over the years. Today I focus on my first shoot in the Philippines. It took place in May of 2007, on the beautiful beaches of the island of Boracay.

Although it was morning, the day was already scorching hot and not a cloud in the sky as I met Carlo for our shoot. We were both living in Manila and just happened to both be vacationing in Boracay at the same time, so it had been planned for us to do a memorable shoot on the soft, sandy white beach there as opposed to the hard, gray concrete of metro Manila.

In discussing the shoot the night before, Carlo impressed me as a kind soul who was easy to get to know and chatting with him that first time felt like we'd known each other forever. Our friendship continues to this day, and my first impression wasn't wrong.

Learn Photography with Jay Plogman Photography Tutorials.

Jay Plogman Photography offers affordable, 1-on-1 tutorials in photography to help you make the most of your camera gear. No matter if you have a simple compact digicam or a full-feature digital SLR, you'll learn how it works and how to make the most of all the features to make your pictures the best they can be.

5 lessons are offered in all. Here they are in the order in which they should be taken:

BASIC PHOTOGRAPHY (SPLIT INTO 2 PARTS - PART 1 & 2): These lessons cover all the basics of photography, whether it is film or digital. All the principles of how to take a good picture are the same. PART 1 covers different camera types, getting to know lenses, how they affect what you see, and composition. PART 2 covers in-depth how camera functions affect your photos and how to manipulate them for desired effects. Each of these takes approximately 2 hours for the average beginner to go through, maybe more, especially if in a group setting.

DIGITAL photography covers all the things that make a
digital camera different from a film camera and what that means to your pictures. There is then an introduction to the basics of Photoshop to see how to deal with the pictures once they're taken. Class takes approximately two hours.

FLASH covers how, when, why and where flash should be used in
picture-taking. Approximately an hour for this class, plus practice time*.

PEOPLE covers what you need to know to get good portraits (and some action photography shots) in virtually any environment. Class takes approximately an hour plus hands-on practice time*.

Because these are offered as tutorials, students are able to ask as many questions as need be without worrying about holding back others. We'll go over your specific camera in depth, so you know what all the features are and how to use them to maximum benefit. Together we'll set many of the menu features to exactly where you want them. The Flash and People lessons also include practice time*. During the practice time for the People lesson, it is heavily suggested you have a friend or family member present to use as your model.

The cost of each lesson individually is $30. If you choose to take all 5, the total package is $125 (a $5 discount on each lesson for a $25 savings overall).

So what are you waiting for? It's time to take your camera off of "AUTO" mode and discover what amazing images await you! And for those who are still afraid to use your camera: pull it out of the closet, take it out of the box, and in just 5 lessons, you may never put it away again!

Email me at j.plogman@gmail.com to set up your private tutorial sessions today.