Sold © Leland Bobbé
From my series “New York City Wall Art”. Shots taken of the sides of walls and buildings in NYC.
New Project – Half Drag
Sabel Scities © Leland Bobbé
Workbook’s Lori Watson introduced me to Sabel at last fall’s Workbook party at the Art Director’s Club which had a carnival theme featuring burlesque performers and drag queens. I had previously done a shot close to this of burlesque performer Doctor Flux and I thought why not do something similar using real New York City drag queens. I ran the idea by Sabel who was up for it and this was the result. I got great feedback on the image so I decided to reach out to other drag queens using Facebook as my main means of communication. My shot with Flux wasn’t this tight but I thought that by shooting very tight I could really emphasize the difference between the drag side and the man side. I’ve now shot four people with many more on the way. We’ll see where this takes me . . .
Robert Bacall Represents in Archive Volume 1 – 2012
My shot is bottom left hand corner.
Portraits – Upstate NY Summer Fairs
Young Couple © Leland Bobbé
This is one of my portraits from this past summer’s series of people at summer fairs in upstate NY. I especially liked these two and they did a great job of following my direction. I shot in open shade with just a silver reflector . . . with a little help from photoshop I was very pleased with the result.
New Portrait – Leslie Van Stelten
I’ve known photographer/photo illustrator Leslie Van Stelten for many years. Her beautiful work appears on CD packages and in many local publications. We hadn’t seen each other for a while but through Facebook we got back in touch. While looking through her photos I was struck by her great rock’n roll look and sense of personal style which was right up my alley. I asked her if she was into being on the other side of the camera and she said sure. She came with a bunch of great sleeveless tops and a variety of hats. We shot two different looks and this shot was my fave. She was really good in front of the camera which made my job really easy . . . just the way I like it.
New Portrait – Myk O’Connor
Myk O'Connor © Leland Bobbé
I met Myk while shopping at Whole Foods in Chelsea where he was working. One look at that beard and i knew i wanted to get him in front of my camera. Ir turns out that Myk is a member of Beard Team USA and Gotham City Beard Alliance and is very active in the world of beard and mustache competitions. He also appeared on the IFC show, “Whisker Wars”. My wife Robin and I approached Myk, I introduced myself and asked him if he would be interested in sitting for a portrait. He obviously said yes and i’m very happy with this shot which I feel really shows off his beard well.
New Portrait – Jazz-minh Moore
This is my recent portrait of fine artist Jazz-Minh Moore who just had a wonderful solo show of her work at Lyons Weir Gallery in NYC. A glowing review of the show will be coming out in the spring issue of Whitewall Magazine.
I originally met Jazz-min through Facebook when she started a page for 90+year old singer and artist Ilona Smithkin and used two of my portraits of Ilona as her profile picture. I didn’t realize it at the time but Jazz-minh had met Ilona during her appearance as one of the artists on the last season of Bravo’s Next Great Artist which I do enjoy watching. I started browsing through her many photos on Facebook and thought she would make a great subject for a portrait. I asked if she would like to sit for me and she was into it. I went to her opening at the beginning of January where we finally met in person. I saw that many of her paintings had women with long flying hair and since she had long beautiful hair I knew wanted to capture that in her portrait. Armed with my beauty dish and fan this is the result.
New Promotion Piece
All Images © Leland Bobbé
This is the front and back of my new Robert Bacall Representatives branded tri-fold self-promotion piece. This along with our Ipad portfolios and dedicated Robert Bacall source book, will give us the tools we need to do some damage in the assignment area. Go Robert!
New Portraits – New Orleans Street Musicians
Nola Street Musicians © Leland Bobbé
During my brief stay in New Orleans this past November I spent some time walking around the French Quarter looking for some unique characters to shoot portraits of. The gentleman on the left with the makeup was sitting on a stool playing the blues. He was thrilled at the idea. The gentleman on the right was standing on the street playing and I could hear his bird chirping from half a block away. As he played it walked around his shoulders. As I was shooting him the bird just sat on his finger and looked right into the camera, a very willing subject.
Neo-Burlesque in Urbania Magazine
World Famous *BOB* © Leland Bobbé
Twenty six images from my Neo-Burlesque project are now running in Urbania Magazine. Urbania is a graphically bold French-Caniadian online magazine based in Montreal that focuses on photographers and their stories. Urbania’s primary mission: to make the ordinary extraordinary.
