For seven years I lived in Backbay, a neighborhood of Newport Beach that's well known to most people who live around there. I lived alone in a comfortable two bedroom apartment across the street from the bay where the ocean breezes blew up from the bay and into my bedroom window and then out through the living room window; my reality every day of the year. It was there that I enjoyed a level of contentment and independence that I'd never known before. I think part of the happiness and lightness of that period was being so alone that there was no one to weigh in on anything I wanted to do. I did what I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it. There was a simplicity to it even though there was always a lot of loneliness lurking in the periphery. The simplicity of doing whatever I wanted to do came with a new sense of responsibility though; if I didn't take the trash out it didn't get taken out. If I didn't pay the utility bills they didn't get paid and trouble followed.
The intensity of the loneliness was almost too much at times and so when it felt like it was going to overpower me I learned to leave the house and go do something, anything, because simmering in the loneliness felt embarrassing. I had money in my pocket, a convertible sports car and Laguna Beach about fifteen minutes to the south of me. Hollywood, my old stomping grounds was 45 minutes to the north. Staying at home when it hurt to do so didn't make much sense. The first time I went out to eat alone in a nice restaurant I was so nervous I wasn't sure I could go through with it. But I did and it was fun and I began reveling in learning to do things alone. My late partner Les had died of cancer two years previous and the transition to being alone had been a rough one. Seven years in that apartment in Backbay allowed me to heal and grow and learn to be independent in a way I'd never been before.
I traveled often to Italy and Europe where I spent time with my childhood friends and saw parts of Europe I hadn't seen before. Twice I sailed through the Greek Islands with friends on a teak sailboat and thought, "Wow, could the world be any more beautiful?" Being back in Rome where I grew up and have lived off and on over the years reminded me that I had not overly romanticized my feelings about it; it has always felt like home and still does. Because my Italian is native I never go through any kind of adjustment; I step off the plane and I'm fully there. Having both the freedom and the money to do that often during those years kept me excited about my life and feeling like I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing.
Countless hours during those years in Backbay were spent at my computer writing the stories of my life. Having the time in the evenings to just sit and write was a luxury that feels long gone now but one I made good use of while it was there for me. I began crocheting and selling beanie caps, I got a crazy amount of artwork inked into my skin, I photographed some amazingly beautiful people and as time progressed I felt like there weren't enough hours in the day to do everything I wanted to do. I danced on the beach and I danced in clubs; usually by myself. I tried some online dating which was a waste, but it felt good to at least try. And there were times of course when it felt great to just sit at home doing nothing or watching Six Feet Under. Rather than being slowed down by my fifties I felt invigorated and propelled by them.
Every Sunday morning for 7 years I drove to Laguna Beach where I had breakfast at the Heidelberg Bistro (five eggs) and then spent the better part of the day on the beach or wandering around Laguna shopping. After returning from the beach in the afternoons I began writing letters to friends about my adventures there and called them Sundays in Laguna. Those stories and others are collected at SundaysinLaguna.com
I know that no matter how good it was then and no matter how happy I was, those years of my life can't be recreated and I would probably be a fool for trying to do it. But the question still persists: How do I find that kind of happiness again?
At the end of my seven years in Backbay I took off for a few weeks to travel in Italy and Greece with a plan to move back up to Hollywood upon my return and resume my work as an entertainment photographer. I'd been on sabbatical for a few years working as an art director there in Newport but it was clear that it was time to get back to my photography. Returning from Europe with a head full of excitement I went to visit my daughter and grandkids in Utah and ended up with a catastrophic bout of bacterial meningitis that nearly killed me. It's an understatement to say that my life for these 16 years since have been rough. My dream of returning to Hollywood vanished and it feels like I've been swimming upstream ever since. Feeling sorry for myself doesn't get me anywhere and so I keep pushing forward. But the deep sense of happiness and adventure that were the hallmarks of my life for so long aren't there anymore. My desire at this point is to figure out how I can regain at least some small part of all that happiness without chasing the dragon.
Jed and I met on Earth Day, April 22nd of 2014. I'd been working for a short time at a local nursery when Jed walked in and asked for some tomato plants for a garden he was planting. A few weeks earlier I'd met someone at a party who looked a lot like him so when I saw him I assumed it was the same guy. "Aren't you the guy I met at so and so's party a few weeks ago?" Worst pickup line ever except that I wasn't trying to pick him up. He answered that he didn't think he was who I thought he was and we continued talking about tomatoes.
At some point in the conversation I learned that Jed was a fire dancer and I had recently photographed a fire dancer so I was interested in doing more work along those lines. We chatted for awhile and then decided to get together the next evening for dinner so that we could pursue the conversation and make some plans for a shoot. We had dinner and then headed back to my place where we spent most of the rest of the night talking and tripping. There was a moment of awkwardness when I realized that it was way late and I needed to get some sleep but really really really didn't want to just kick him out. So I asked him if he wanted to stay. He did and we've been inseperable ever since.
In 2009 I began crafting a series of images in and around The Great Salt Lake in Utah. After dozens of shoots and countless images later the collection called 'Mysteries Of The Big Salty Lake' found its natural ending with Rainey and Jed providing the wild and unfettered beauty that I'd long been hoping for. Mysteries Of The Big Salty Lake is now complete.
We traveled to the north end of the lake to Rozel Point, a stone's throw from Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. It's a place of harsh magic where oil oozes from the earth, the water has 27% salinity and the wooden remnants of long ago oil rigs still haunt the landscape. It's crazy dry up there and the wind can whip fiercely while storms move in quickly across the lake from the desert. V shaped formations of brown pelicans fly effortlessly overhead from their home on Gunnison Island while the occasional snake slithers underfoot. For the past 12 years it's been my favorite place on the lake to shoot. Journeying there with my models is a ritual I've loved and will certainly miss. It feels good to have said goodbye with Rainey and Jed providing so much magic to the collection.
There's a lot to share about this shoot and I'll do that in the next few weeks. The selection and editing of images is a process that takes a lot of time when models like Rainey and Jed have delivered one astonishing moment after another.
All of the images on this page, on this post and on this blog are Copyrighted by Tom Clark and may not be used in any form, digital or otherwise, without specific written permission.
Continue reading "Mysteries Of The Big Salty Lake - Jed and Rainey" »
For seven years I lived and worked in a quiet little neighborhood in the Backbay area of Newport Beach called Santa Ana Heights. Though I call the area a quiet little neighborhood it lies directly under the flight path of the Orange County Airport. Not a problem for me though since every time a jet took off I imagined myself in it and on my way to Italy, my childhood home. It was a beautiful way to turn the noise of a jet engine into a promising fantasy that more than a few times became my reality. Perhaps one of the best parts of living in Santa Ana Heights was the fact that it took me 13 minutes to get to Laguna Beach, the legendary beach town that to this day remains one of my favorite places on earth. I have loved Laguna since I first discovered it in early 1983 and Jed and I are currently in the planning phase of making it our permanent home.
All of that is to introduce you to a series of letters that I wrote to friends about my adventures in Laguna on Sunday mornings. I never intended it to be a thing but on its own it became one. I created the domain SundaysInLaguna.com and began to gather the essays and stories into one place. As we contemplate our new life there I’m certain that these essays will likely begin again with an updated perspective on a Southern California beach town that has seen a fascinating and unstoppable evolution over the past many decades. In that light I would like to begin where my original essays left off and share with you my thoughts on what it means to be a part of that evolution. This was written on Super Bowl Sunday 2016
One of the many people that I photographed for Playgirl magazine is Dirk Shafer, pictured here in a cabin in the San Bernardino Mtns east of Los Angeles. It was our first shoot of many and was quite successful in that it eventually contributed to Dirk being named one of Playgirl's 'Man of the Year.' The editors of the magazine kept telling me to make the work more raunchy but I wasn't much good at raunchy so I stuck to doing what I knew how to do best. One month they were ok with erections and the next month they weren't. It was always difficult dealing with them for a host of reasons, so I finally stopped shooting for them. Over the years though I crafted a lot of fun images of both men and women for Playgirl and learned a lot about working with nude models in the process. This was shot on 35mm transparency film and scanned from the original slide.
A long time ago in a very far away place called Hollywood I photographed two beautiful young women together. They had once been lovers but at the time of the shoot were just really close friends who were willing to work with me for a few hours in the studio. I love this earlier work because of its simplicity and because of my innocence at the time. I worked only with film of course and did most of my own darkroom work. I started doing nudes about 35 years ago and have never stopped. It's what I love, it's what I do and I'm grateful for the beautiful and interesting people who've been willing to get nude for my cameras.
Eight of my friends helping me celebrate the harvest as per the ancient traditions when women got together and had fun while harvesting the season's bounty. They are Heather, Auri, Alison, Erika, Melissa, Michele, Deb and JJ. Thank you muses, you light my fires...
I've been sharing a lot of pictures of my partner Jed lately. We met on Earth Day 2014 and have been inseparable since. In that time we've done a lot of work together. He was modeling before we met and we just kicked it up a few notches with images and videos that would thrill me even if we weren't together. I'm playing catch-up here with images that I feel have an important place in my collections. With that said, here's one from last year in the Sierras where we spent a few weeks camping, playing and taking tons of pictures.
Most of my nudes for many years now have tended towards the warmer tones, which lend themselves to our skin tones. As many marketing studies have shown most of us respond more strongly to warmer tones than cooler ones. For awhile now though I've been experimenting with cooler pallets and find that they're working for me in ways I wouldn't have expected. To wit, here are a couple of recent works that illustrate what that's all about. Oh, and the watermark is something I've avoided doing since I started sharing images online but my images are constantly being stolen and re-appropriated by people who don't care about copyright law. Watermarks aren't foolproof but they do slow down the amateurs a little.
I've been taking pictures of nude men and women for about 35 years and even though I've done a lot of different kinds of photography the nudes are at the core of my work. There is nothing to defend - this is what I love and this is what I do. Centuries of artists before me have done the same and most of the time their work feeds me and inspires me. A handful of contemporary photographers and artists do nudes that are thrilling to me and I love that the internet has made it possible to see their work on a daily basis. And then there are the fascinating and beautiful people who have worked nude for me; wow do I have reverence and gratitude for them because there would be no artwork without them. It's a delicious minestrone of bodies, personalities, locations and imagery. I'm a very lucky guy.
John Cottrell photographed at Rozel Point on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Copyrighted Image - All Rights Reserved
Heather and Destiny photographed in a magical forest that I can't disclose because I promised the elves I wouldn't. Hair and makeup by Ashlen Duke. Copyrighted Image - All Rights Reserved
25 Years
25 years ago today my late partner Les died of complications related to lymphoma. It’s strange to even write about it anymore because it’s been so long; we were together 6 years and a lot of water has flowed beneath my bridges since then. It was a period of tremendous growth and excitement though and in looking back I’m reminded of how much I learned, how much fun I had and how amazing it was to make music with Les almost every day that we were together. I miss Les sometimes but I always miss the music.
In the months and years following Les’ death I experienced such sadness that I thought I’d never be ok ever again. But 25 years later I am ok and I’ve gone on to create a life that’s rich and full of love and constantly infused with deeply satisfying pursuits. The music is gone and that left a hole that will never be filled; other things have taken its place though and I’m mostly ok with that.
I’ve explored virtually everything I want to explore about death and Les’ death in particular. I wrote a book about our time together and it felt like that really took care of so much of what needed taking care of in my soul. I’ve talked openly and freely about him and us and my experience in all of this. At some point I realized I was happy again and that I just didn’t have much else to say.
The anniversaries come and go but 25 years feels pretty significant; a day of gratitude for my time with a beautiful and extraordinarily gifted man who showed me how to have fun and play and dance and savor life.
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