A NEW BEGINNING featuring BRANDON PARKER

photographed by Tarrice Love

featuring Brandon Parker (unsigned)

styled by Tarrice Love

grooming by Tarrice Love

I first met Brandon Parker about five years ago in the Hickory Ridge Mall in Memphis, TN. My assistant, Aisha Edwards, spotted him and thought he would be great to shoot. We exchanged phone numbers and by the end of that day had set up his first shoot.

Standing at 6ft and weighing a whooping 200lbs, Brandon is a semi-pro football player for the Tennessee Hurricanes. He plays the position of wide receiver. He has dabbled in acting and modeling appearing a a few local tv commercials and traveling all over the country posing for many photographers.

The images you see posted are a set I recently shot when Brandon made the trip to the Big Apple to celebrate his birthday and visit friends. I am glad that he made time to grace my lens. We shot the fashion images in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. Thanks to photographer, Sidney Etienne, for letting us use his rooftop to shoot the nude shots. His rooftop overlooked the Halsey Street subway station and their were about 40 onlookers.

 

For this set of images I wanted to capture him in a way he hadn't seen himself. I mainly wanted to photograph him in a suit but his big ass could only fit one of my suits. Despite the fact that I was terrified that he was gonna rip thru my suit like the Incredible Hulk, I think the shots turned out amazing for him. The nudes - I wanted to have a very light and graceful feeling. Using the Brooklyn sky as his backdrop seem to be perfect for him.

One of the things I have always enjoyed about working with Brandon is his level of comfort in front of the camera. Finding a male model who was comfortable naked in the Bible-belt mecca of Memphis was very rare. His natural ability to convey grace, masculinity, and sex appeal has made him a longtime favorite to work with. He is a great guy and fun to photograph I look forward to working with him the next time he comes to NYC and will make sure to do a video with him.

(Brandon Parker was so tired after the shoot, he fell asleep on the train heading back to my place in Brooklyn, lol)

MY FIRST NUDES ....

this was my first nude project i shot... i called it Genesis. It was inspired my the biblical story of the creation of man and women. The models in the project were my best friend, Dawn and Kwasi. I was bored with my fashion attempts and at the suggestion of my Dawn, I decided to try shooting an artistic nude. I thought it would be easy, especially since my models for the project were my friends but I was soooo nervous. I couldn't stop shaking. I shot Kwasi first and most of my shots were blurry and out of focus due to camera shake. He had to reshoot his shots later. Dawn was a little bit easier.

I made a collage using xerox copies of the passages of Genesis and stacked the negatives creating these amazing double exposed prints. Then I used a photo dye process to color the prints that murky red color.

In this digital everything age, I almost forgot what it's like to work with film and the value of processed film. Looking at these images brought back memories of the darkroom and the photography printing process. Many photographers emerging on the scene are dependent upon the expertise of stylist, makeup, hair dresser, technicians and most of all photoshop to make their images look good. I remember being in the darkroom for days working on these 2 images. If you handed many of today's photographers a roll of film to shoot and process they'd look at you lost and dumb-founded. I think my experience in the darkroom is a definite asset to my digital work today. I was very proud of everything i put into these images.

My Granny was so proud of the images , she took my 24x30 prints to church to show off what her grand son had done. lol