This week has been a whole lot of getting ready for the 50th Anniversary of the Southern Renaissance Faire, as well as getting ready to head to Estrella War (and SCA event which takes place the same weekend as Dress Rehearsal for faire). If that sounds a bit complicated to manage, it's because it totally is. I'll post about SCA stuff later, because lately it's been all faire stuff. Here's what I've been working on:



My new doublet & slops. Shown here without buttons, sleeves or a codpiece (all of which are now finished and the codpiece says "God Save the Queen!" when you squeeze it); all it needs now are some new shoe finials and some tweaking to my hat.




I'm also continuing my quest to become a knight this year by squiring to Sir Christopher Hatton. This is my belt favor (looking suspiciously like I stole a Hatton household napkin and dyed it red) that I will wear to show I am now Master Yeoman Flynn, *Esquire*.




I've also been working on stuff for the rest of the Yeoman of the Guard, though I admit this one may be a bit selfish. As I get in trouble (like, a lot) I dreamed up this idea based on something Yeoman Piper said, and then had Yeomans Hammer & Clydesdale help me make it. It's a "penalty box" we can get sent to during lunch so we can still be in the show and not have to eat backstage.




Lastly, to help spruce up our guildyard I had Mistress Grace help me paint up these Coats of Arms for the knights of the YotG, so we could have our own up in the courtyard instead of just the nobles. They're painted in such a way as to match what we already have up, so they should blend pretty seamlessly.

I'm pretty happy with the way everything turned out. I'll try to get pics of the heraldry up on the walls, as well as me in my full uniform as soon as I can.

Cheers!
-- Flynn

Recently at Nakayama Studios Riverside we took down the Asian set, moved the Bar set over (and re-vamped it with all new props and some side additions) and now I have a blank spot on a hardwood floor area where the bar used to be.

Blank set space: Nakayama Studios Riverside

So I'm looking for ideas to build a set on this small (but plenty useable) space, however, there is a catch: It needs to be versatile, so I can use it more than once. (For example: if you said "make it the bridge of the Starship Enterprise" that would not be very useful, as I could really only shoot it one way, one time. Better examples would be a living room or medical center or circus tent, so I could use it for multiple shoots. I have already done all of those, though.)

Anyhow, if you can think of great ideas, preferably one that incorporates a hardwood floor (since there is already one there) I am all ears. Leave a comment here (or on Facebook, or wherever you followed the link from) and lets hear some of your ideas!

2011 marks the first year I did less nude photoshoots than the year before, which I knew was coming at some point, although I was surprised to see that it was almost as low as a few years ago. Actually, scratch that. I'm not surprised, because besides taking an entire month off to shoot corporate work in Europe I also was VERY picky about how and when I shot this year, and didn't just shoot because I felt obligated to. This freed up a lot of my creativity, and I feel some of my best work came out of it. It's better for me to shoot when I want to, rather that when I feel I *have* to, and since the economy is coming out of the toilet a bit I can shoot less and still make the same amount of money. I did have a great time this year, though, and as I mentioned, I also turned out some great work. Unless otherwise noted, the following shoots were done in or right near my newest studio in Riverside, CA.

<sub>January
Low Key
Classic
French Curves
The Magician's Assistant

February
Re-Imagined Heroes: Gambit

March
The Beauty of Ink: 18
Gangsta, Gangsta
Eastern Glamour
Golden Age (of Hollywood) 6
Where The Grass in Greener (Dallas, TX)
Take Me Away (Dallas, TX)
Signed, Sealed, Delivered (Blacklight 36) (Dallas, TX)
Red & Black VI (Dallas, TX)
Writer's Block (Dallas, TX)
Pinstripes (Dallas, TX)
Luxury Suite (Dallas, TX)
Dark (Anchorage, AK)
Naked Twister (Anchorage, AK)
Pearls & Lace (Anchorage, AK)
Winter Wonderland III (Anchorage, AK)
Polyamoury: The Chains of Love (Anchorage, AK)
Twisted Ink (Ink 19) (Anchorage, AK)
(The Beauty of) Ink 20 (Anchorage, AK)
Masked: Blacklight 38 (Anchorage, AK)

April
Digital Assassin

May
Spotlight
My Apocalypse
As Above, So Below (Mira Loma, CA)
The Silence
Underwater Serenity
Floating

June
The Shadows of Tragedy
...and then I headed off for a 17 city tour of Europe.

July
Doll
The Hidden Pools (Running Springs, CA)
At Peace
Hot For Teacher
Blacklight 40: Ribbons
Wild Thing (Victorville, CA)
Flood (Victorville, CA)
Babylon
cybersink
Lady Luck
Style
Modern Retro: Brownie
Smile :)
Legba's Bride
Venetian Nights
Quartermaster
Apocalyptic Cheesecake

August
Kiss of Light
This. Is. SPARTUS!
(Abandoned) Uncaged
Ghost Town Pin-up (Ghost Town 11) (Jerome, AZ)
Bordello
Black Sands (Maui, HI)
Pele's Playground (Maui, HI)
Aloha! (Maui, HI)
The Hidden Cove (Maui, HI)
Island Forest (Maui, HI)
Abandoned Maui (Maui, HI)

September
Vasquez (Vasquez Park, CA)
Graffiti IV (Lake Castaic, CA)
Underwater Glamour
Marble Threshold (Dallas, TX)
Sparkle & Fade (Dallas, TX)
Projections 8
Zombie Apocalypse

October
Groovy (Dallas, TX)
Light (High Key III)
Wastelands (Abandoned)

November
The New World (Winkleman, AZ)
Crazy in Love
Bedtime
Santa's Little Helper
Curtain Call (Las Vegas, NV)

December
Silhouettes III
Scary Dairy (Abandoned)
Holiday Cheer
(The Beauty of) Ink 21</sub>


Did you see all 80 shoots? What was your favorite shoot? Favorite image? Let me know in the comments!

So my 37th trip for this year was to Las Vegas & Primm, NV, for a day of shooting and a little R&R + shopping for the holiday weekend. Despite ending up with just a single shoot (post-turkey day illness took out THREE of my scheduled models) it was a great weekend, very productive (as I used my down time to catch up on the loads of post-processing I was behind on) and I got to spend some time with my family. I'm glad to be home though, and I'll start posting new pics *very* soon, so keep an eye out over on the uniquenudes Group Blog (NSFW) for updates.

Cheers!

-- Richard

I find myself in Texas a lot these days... Houston, San Antonio, Pasadena, Dallas... So much so that I still have this LJ icon in regular rotation. The main reason is CieAura; a company I shoot for that does a lot of business here. But I also plan on opening Nakayama Studios Dallas, as I have a ton of models and friends out this way as well.

I'm currently in Houston, where I've been staying at the Crowne Plaza in a lovely 2 bedroom suite, shooting video testimonial for above-mentioned company. Today I'm flying from Houston to Dallas to do some more corporate work up there, and *maybe* squeeze in a photoshoot if I can find a model willing to come out late at night for a hotel shoot.

I like Texas, in that the people are awesome and friendly and the food is fantastic. I could pretty much do without the weather year-round; and today it is 104° and 80% humidity. Bleah. But Houston is close enough to Louisiana to serve good sweet tea and remind me of New Orleans, which is pretty awesome. (My family is from Baton Rouge & N'awlins, so this type of scenery holds a very special place in my heart.)

Really this is just a filler post to let you know what has been going on since Hawaii. I got back from that 7 day trip, left 2 days later for a 5 day pirate event, had one day off before Pickles' big fashion show, then shot for three days straight before leaving for Texas. I'm here for 5 days, then the next day after I get home I'm shooting an A-list party for the Emmys, followed by 2 or 3 days of multiple shoots, and then finally I get a few days off in the middle of next week. That won't last, of course. I have to come back to Texas in 2 weeks, followed by a huge SCA event, my birthday, and then a huge gala in Las Vegas. Basically, no rest for the wicked.

Until my next post,
-- Richard

The truth is, I was hurting pretty bad for 2 days, and then I spent the last 2 days going ALL OVER Maui shooting beautiful nude models in some amazing locations. So I didn't have anytime to write blogs and I didn't get any sunset pics that *don't* have naked models in them, so there wasn't much to post in the way of travel blogging the last half of the week.

I have posted 2 shoots from Maui already up on my website, and you can see the (NSFW) preview images over on the uniquenudes group blog. There are also four more shoots to post still (I shot a total of 6 shoots featuring 3 models while I was there) but I'm headed out to an event this weekend where I will be mostly AFI (away from internet) so it may be a while until they are up.

In any case, I am feeling much better, I am home, and all is well.

Aloha!
-- Richard

So, uh... yeah. I spent the day in bed, getting up long enough to shoot a morning meeting and then crawled back in to bed in pain. Not sure from what yet, but my side is splitting and it's hard to move. I'm a little better now than this morning, but I really won't know until I wake up tomorrow how successful the treatment I'm trying will be.

(Recently I've been told of many terrible high-school-drama-y things being said about me behind my back on Facebook and the like. I suppose maybe this pain is karmic justice for what I terrible person I am? Of course, the thing is I'm still in MAUI; I had room service cater to me all day -- all expenses paid -- and I've gotten so much love and support from everyone else that I find it hard to believe that I'm being punished by the universe. Besides, even though these spiteful people spill their hateful vitriolic all over the web to anyone who will listen, I still refuse to 'fight back' or even comment publicly, and I have nothing but love for them and the rest of the universe. It's a Buddhist thing. That, and 35 is way too old to be playing in to that sort of childish thing. When do people grow out of that phase, anyhow?)

Anyways, I spent the whole day in my room, and I just spent the last 2.5 hours talking to my wonderful girlfriend on the phone (and Skype) so I'm actually feeling pretty good, at least emotionally. And since I was on my balcony all day watching the sunset, I was able to snap an awesome "Fish in a Barrel" shot without even having to stand up:


I'm wondering if by my 6th night here I'll be sick of sunset shots, but so far not even close. Are guys sick of seeing them yet? I tried to spice up the last few posts with pics of me (and other things) as well, but I really didn't go anywhere today.

Oh wait! I did post a pic of myself on Facebook, which led to an amusing back and forth between Heather (model and close friend) and my girlfriend Pickles:

I entitled it "Fear & Loathing in Maui, Hawaii (Looking very Hunter S. Thompson-ish today)"

Which spawned this comment thread:

Heather Garvey: Wrong hat.

Pickles Morgan: and sunglasses

Richard Rasner: Please note: Looking Thompson-ish is not the same as "check out my HST cosplay outfit"

Heather Garvey: Then you are talking to the wrong two people.

Richard Rasner: I am bald enough. Maybe I'll go gonzo for Halloween this year.

Heather Garvey: I know what you are talking about but I am stil picturing you as a blue fuzzy Muppet.

Pickles Morgan: we could paint you green and you could go as Dr. Bunsen Honeydew

Rhiannon Maple: Pickles: pictures please if you do it.

Richard Rasner: ‎*sigh*

Pickles Morgan: LOVE YOU! ;)

This is why I didn't capitalize "gonzo" but I still should have known better. Anyhow, now this post isn't about a single sunset pic. I'm off to bed (to the sound of the surf coming through my screen door no less) and hopefully tomorrow I will be feeling better and will have much more to post.

Mahalo for reading this!
-- Richard

Aloha from Maui! Today was another packed day, primarily with corporate photo shooting. However, I did get to enjoy myself a little bit, as evidenced by this picture I posted on Facebook:


It was actually nice to get out and enjoy the bar in the pool, as well as the poolside cafe (where I had lunch later) and also to hang out a bit in my private shady cabana on the beach. I still got a little pink, but not too bad. Tomorrow I think I am shooting indoors all day, so I shouldn't get any more burnt.

I also got to shoot some wildlife today, and by "wildlife" I totally mean this domestic butterfly Koi and a random gecko I saw in the bushes of the hotel parking lot:


In the evening it was time for the Luau, and I snapped a few photos of the dancers and fire spinners, including this shot of the 3-time World Champion fire-knife spinner:


All in all my day went pretty well, so I can't complain. (Of course, it's hard to complain when you are staying 6 nights/7 days all-expenses paid in a 5-star hotel in Maui anyhow.) I did finally get put in to my correct room, so no more moving every night; I actually get to stay in this room the next 4 evenings. Yay! Also, I spoke to the new model this morning and she is all set for a shoot on Monday morning, so here's to hoping that will work since it is my last full day here.

Finally, tonight's "Fish in a barrel" sunset shot is from directly on the Luau beach where I had dinner:


Until tomorrow, Aloha!
-- Richard

This morning I was to wake up early and head down to the local nude beach and shoot the model that had scheduled 2 (possibly 3) shoots with me for this trip. We had spoken on the phone, she seemed friendly and competent enough and her schedule coincided with mine so everything seemed cool.

When she first hit me up at 7:30am and told me she was running late I was ok with that. Then she told me an hour later her daughter was sick so she wanted to shoot on a later day. I sent her a text with my available shooting schedule for the week I'm here and I got back a message somewhere along the lines of "I don't think nudes are the best choice for my career." WTF?! I had to repost my casting call after taking it down since I thought I was already booked. (My time for shooting art nudes here is limited, since I'm here for a corporate shoot.) Fortunately another model hit me up on the new casting call within minutes, and in theory I have a shoot scheduled with her in 2 days. (I'm calling her tomorrow morning to discuss it, though, so I'll let you know how that goes.)

Anyhow, today was a fun day. I shot arrivals of guests for the events, got in some swimming time again and went to an awesome desert reception, where I had some Hawaiian coffee. WOW is that stuff good. I may never go back to French roast. I also got to meet super-Olympian Mark Spitz today (he was swimming in the hotel pool) and that was also pretty neat. Basically, it was altogether an awesome first full day in Maui.

And I did get another "fish in a barrel" shot, which is not at all surprising:


And lastly I did end up getting moved to another room, but this one is *also* temporary (just for tonight) but it does have 4 balconies, a whirlpool tub in a window overlooking the beach, and this view from the 8th floor:


So despite the minor snafus I am pretty stoked to be in Paradise, even if Pickles can't be with me (yet another fashion show is keeping her home). But I will be home soon, and that makes it bearable.

Cheers from Paradise!
-- Richard