Renek Gaszewski [Blog]

Sara Ziff began modeling at the age of 14 in New York. At her third casting, in the East Village, models went in to see the photographer one by one. When it was her turn, the photographer said he needed to see her without her shirt. Then he said it was still hard for him to imagine her for the story, so he asked her to take her pants off, too. Nervous, just 14 years old, and eager to succeed in her new profession, she obliged.
Stories like this are all too common in the modeling industry, though unlike anorexia or body-image issues, they’re hardly publicized. Ziff aims to expose them in the documentary she made called Picture Me. Over five years, she took cameras backstage at shows, to parties, and on photo shoots. Her now-ex-boyfriend, a filmmaker, came with her and shot, too. She gave cameras to fellow models and asked them to share their stories. Model Sena Cech described a disturbing casting with one of the industry’s top photographers:

Halfway through the meeting Cech is asked to strip. She does as instructed and takes off her clothes. Then the photographer starts undressing as well. “Baby — can you do something a little sexy,” he tells her. The photographer’s assistant, who is watching, eggs her on. What’s supposed to be the casting for a high-end fashion shoot turns into something more like an audition for a top-shelf magazine. The famous photographer demands to be touched sexually. “Sena — can you grab his cock and twist it real hard,” his assistant tells her. “He likes it when you squeeze it real hard and twist it.”

Cech did it, but turned down the job because she feared the audition was only a taste of what the shoot would be like. The photographer never wanted to work with her again. Ziff explains, “Pretty much every girl I have talked to has a story like it, but no one talks about it. It’s all under the radar because people are embarrassed and because the people in the industry who are doing these things are much more powerful, and the model is totally disposable. She could be gone in two years.” Young models don’t always have anyone to turn to. Just think of the enormous pressures placed on a poor 15-year-old from Latvia who is supporting her family and barely speaks English. Ziff continues:

“I’ve done shoots naked, totally naked. They sell it to you as: ‘Here’s this great artist and he wants to take your portrait.’ I had to switch off the voice in my head that said: ‘Do you really want to do this?’ When you’re being paid a lot of money and you want to appear cool you really don’t want to show any resistance to going with it.
“But at the end of the day I used to wonder: what’s the difference between doing a shoot in your underwear for Calvin Klein and being a stripper? Obviously you are compromising yourself. How far am I willing to go? How much am I willing to show for a big fat cheque?”

A model union could protect models from situations like these. A year and a half ago, two models based in Britain set one up that campaigns for better working conditions, holiday and sickness pay, and protection in case of injury. But they still have a lot of work to do.

See more about this at website RG4M.COM. Castings, portfolios, photography, jobs and work…

Bridport has a long tradition of art. In recent years it’s become an established centre for life drawing where artists both professional and amateur can turn up and draw a nude model.
Emma Chance is a brave soul. Baring all to a group of strangers, she stays motionless for long periods of time so they can draw her from every conceivable angle.
Rather than being embarrassed or uncomfortable Emma is happy to pose because she herself is an artist who has drawn nude models.
She said, “It’s fine because I’ve been on the other side and I’ve done the drawing and I’m used to it. The first initial taking off your dressing gown can sometimes be a bit intimidating but you just get used to it. Everyone’s professional so it just feels comfortable.”
Emma was modelling at a series of life-drawing sessions where artists of all abilities can turn up at Bridport Arts Centre and draw a live model.
Looking not drawing
Among them was Suna Morrisey from Bridport who declared that “there’s no other way to learn how to draw.” She said, “You learn more about juxtaposition of parts the body and it teaches you to really look, which you’re actually doing, you’re not drawing you’re looking.”
The sessions are run by Abbotsbury based artist John Meaker who fears that life drawing is a dying art and feels strongly that the skill should be kept alive especially as many art schools appear to be giving it up.
He said, “There’s nowhere else where you’re going to get disciplined drawing apart from in the life room really of that kind of intensity of analytical involvement of what you’re looking at.”
The sessions attract all sorts of artists from professionals and amateurs to degree and A level students who need to expand their portfolios. They’re particularly popular because there aren’t many opportunities to paint a nude model partly because there aren’t many people prepared to do it.
Physically demanding
That might explain why many of the models John recruits for his life sessions are artists themselves. Thea Martin from Bridport is a regular at the sessions but only turned to art after a stint as a model. She started modelling to find out what it was like to pose, because she wanted to write a feature about it.
Having plucked up the courage to do it once, she found this was a good way of supplementing her income even though at times it’s hard to stay so still. She said, “It’s the long poses when you start really feeling the pain of being really still.”
John Meaker tends to choose younger models simply because the artists prefer it that way and because it’s quite physically demanding.
He said, “I’m afraid I may look prejudiced but I like to have a model that looks like a classical figure, and most important for that is agility. Not necessarily youth but health.”
Bridport’s artistic tradition dates back to the 19th Century when a thriving arts school was established. The painter and designer Charles Rennie Macintosh came to the town to draw and teach.
Today the town is host to a huge range of professional and amateur artists which is perhaps why the life drawing sessions are so popular and may be why in Bridport at least it isn’t that hard to find individuals who are prepared to bare all for art.

Tony Mandarich’s ex-fiancee is suing the world’s most famous draft bust because she claims that he set up a porn website under her name to embarrass her with pictures of her doing dirty, dirty things. That’s not very gentlemanly.
In 2002, Mandarich was engaged to Sharra Ferbrache, a model/spokesanchorperson and at one time the host of some sort of monster truck TV show. They split up, but according to a lawsuit filed in Arizona last week, Mandarich came into possession of certain “intimate sexual pictures and videos of plaintiff that were to be kept personal and completely and totally private between them.” Believe it or not, he didn’t dispose of them when they broke up. Then a website magically popped up last year under her name, allegedly registered by a company owned by Mandarich and his new wife (he’s a bit of a web entrepreneur) and those pictures and videos were all over it! What a coincidence.
Ferbrache says the site is a ploy by Tony and his wife, Charlavan (that’s her on the right), to humiliate her by making hardcore porn the first thing that comes up in a search engine. I guess it worked. Judging by the size of the genitalia involved, I’m going to say Tony is not the other performer in these photos, but it’s not clear where the pictures came from or what their original purpose really was. Perhaps they were test shoots for Tony and Char’s “boudoir photography” business. Now that I’ve planted the vision of Tony Mandarich coming into your bedroom to taking provocative photos of your wife, you may stop reading until the dry heaves have subsided.
The site that the lawsuit covers is amazingly still live, but I think I’m going to go ahead and not to link to it, because if the allegations are true then Mandarich is an ever bigger world-class prick than previously believed, so why do him any favors? And two, you know where the Google is.

The office art adorning the walls of the Oregon Department of Corrections in Salem is varied in style and content. Look closely, and you’ll see unusual artist details.
One piece, featuring trucks, is called “Foot Puller.” The artist’s name is Nathan Harris, inmate number 11020095. It’s selling for $75. Another piece, titled “The Sentry,” was created Jack Crescenzi, inmate number 11020095. Sale price: $45.
A check of public records by KATU News reveals inmate Nathan Harris is in prison for sodomy and sex abuse. Jack Crescenzi was convicted on the first-degree murder of his wife, Bobbi Crescenzi.
The art was created by inmates housed at Oregon correctional facilities. The Oregon Department of Corrections says it displays the art, making the paintings and drawings available for sale to the public.
Mike Gower, Assistant Director of Operations, says the prisoners get the money, and it “goes into inmate trust accounts.” Trust accounts can be used by inmates to buy snacks and other personal items at their prisoner commissary.
This is the third year in a row prison officials have helped inmates sell their art for personal profits. Officials say the prisoners price the art themselves. One inmate priced his piece at $3,500.
Former Deschutes County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Flaherty, who prosecuted Jack Crescenzi, tells KATU News, “The main problem I have with that is that the money is not going to the victims of this crime. I think it’s perfectly okay for the corrections department to display the art and sell the art, but I think the proceeds should go to the crime victims, not to the inmate.”
KATU News has also learned there is no system in place in Oregon that automatically garnishes inmate earnings to pay their victims court-ordered restitution, unless the inmates are working minimum-wage jobs within the prison. The Oregon Department of Justice does go after individual inmates for money owed to the state, but only on a case-by-case basis. And crime victims often have to file civil lawsuits against offenders to claim money due to them.
Meg Garvin, Executive Director of the Lewis and Clark College’s National Crime Victim Law Institute, says, “If the system is set and money is being made by offenders and it’s not going to restitution, there’s a flaw in the system because victims should have the priority there. We should be making sure any money made should be going to restitution for the victims.”
Garvin says the restitution system nationwide is flawed, and victims often get restitution ordered but collecting it is a challenge any victim of crime faces, including crime victims in Oregon.