Welcome to the 1.1 version of LateNightFeelings.com, the daily feed of thoughts and photographic highlights from the lives and works of Nathan Appel, Bob Coulter, Chase Lisbon, Merkley???, George Pitts, and Tony Stamolis. The goal here is to make an arena for six prominent erotic photographers to showcase their current thoughts and work. At a time when more and more sites are censoring people, or cutting off any and all eroticism in general, we have decided to build an erotic site free of censorship as well as membership fees. The end result of FLNGS will be a group photo blog and a ever-growing archive of erotic photography accessible in a slide show format. For now we're going to start this site off with a different format by first introducing each other. My name is Chase Lisbon, and I've been in charged with kicking things off.
Chase Lisbon: I'm not exactly sure how the six of us came together as the FLNGS team, but maybe it will become clearer as things progress. I've been looking over people's work a little bit in the past few weeks. It's clear that we cover the field from one end to the other. The only person here that I have spoken to before is Merkley???. I think all of us have done work for Nerve.com in the past except Coulter. It occurred to me that I really know very little about each of you. I kind of have this idea in my head about some of you that I based on little or no actual facts... For instance, I have this idea that maybe Merkley comes from either a Morman or homeless background.
Merkley???: Mormon yes. Homeless no, a shopping cart is a home just as much as your trailer out on the farm is. I'M DRUNK! Work for Nerve? I was harassed and told to keep my pants down, which sounds like a party until you realize it's snowing and someone is shoving an icicle up your butt. I HATED NERVE! gave me the fucking creeps. I'll be honest here. I like chase because he comes off sorta gay. thank goodness.
Lisbon: Ok...That got weird pretty fast. I have this vague sense that Pitts, Appel, and Stamolis come from the school of people interested in photography? My image of Pitts is compiled from an early phone conversation where he disclosed that he used to hang out with William Burroghs and a photograph I have seen of him that Siege [Clayton Cubbit] took where he's wearing a tuxedo maybe? This sort of super formal beatnik photographer. I feel like I have to bite my tongue to keep from swearing when I talk to him.
Merkley???: I'll be honest here. I like chase because he comes off sorta gay. thank goodness.
Tony Stamolis: I got the best note from Pitts years ago when I sent a book to Vibe. I still have it somewhere...
ended with something about "...interesting images, and all your Bad Ass Sexuality."
We know a ton of mutual people now, in this small village we live in.
Lisbon: Shit that makes me laugh, thinking of this super formal letter ending like that. The emails I've been getting from Pitts make me feel ashamed of myself for not going to college. I haven't had a "real job"of any sorts since 1997, so I have completely lost the ability to be formal, if I ever had it to begin with. I didn't mean to become a photographer at all. I'm under the impression that Merkley and Coulter fell into this by accident as well. I picture Bob as the sort of Iggy Pop of this game, and like I said, I think Merkley used to be homeless. I'm not sure though... I know that when I first went to his house it was filled with all of these amazing paintings he had done. I asked him why he took pictures instead of painting. I'm pretty sure his answers was basically, "Painting takes a long time and is hard, pictures are easy." I can't tell, but Merkley may be one of the laziest people I've ever met. As far as that goes though, it's hard to tell.I know for me there's times when I'm filled with the energy of a comet and I couldn't stop myself from working if I wanted, whereas at other times I can barely get out of bed. Do any of you experience the same? I'm just really curious about how other people in the same position balance their lives. For me it's actually difficult to be so free of structure.
Merkley???: I am actually the Heavyweight Sleep Champion of The World!
Bob Coulter: All I ever do is work. It drives my wife nuts, Im sure she thinks I dont love her, but work is my thing. I do all the pictures, videos, music, art and html etc. on my web site crazybabe.com myself. The last couple of years since I started making movies and videos for my site it takes me even more time. To be honest with you, its kinda gotten out of hand, but its like my little art project.
Stamolis: I have learned to constantly keep the cogs oiled... inundate myself with projects. Self motivation is an art form! If there is a creative lull, I go do some yard work, and hang out with my 13.5 year old dachshund, Otis, who barely has any teeth, and whose breath smells like Chinese food. Inspiration!
Coulter: I started crazybabe to learn html so I could do my thing on the web. At first all I had on the site was a LOT of stolen pictures Id grabbed off of newsgroups. My site started taking off and it just seemed too sleazy to have other peoples pics there, plus it wasnt me, it was all just a bunch of shit. So I bought a camera and started taking pictures myself. At first the models helped me set up lights and told me how to set the settings on the camera. The funny part is I have pictures from my very first photo shoot in my first book Crazy Babe.
Lisbon: That's exactly how I got into this. I learned Dreamweaver and flash to start a site, started taking pictures of girls and threw it all together. That's how I started Supercult. I taught myself the web stuff in the December of 2000 and put the site up in January. I was incredibly awful at photography for years. I'm really a video guy at heart. by far.
Nathan Appel: I'm pretty low level myself. I like to sleep, I don't run unless I'm being chased, and I'd rather watch a group of girls play volleyball than play with them. I'm trying to think if I've ever had an energy spurt, and all I can think about is jumping into a car to meet someone 10 hours away, but even then, I'm sitting down for 10 hours. Passive aggressive, or maybe aggressive passive?
Lisbon: Do you spend a lot of time watching these girls play volleyball? I'm glad that you are letting your "Ted Bundy" side show immediately. I would hate to have to wait around more than a sentence before that came out. Did you go to school for photography? How did you end up alone in these rooms with the naked girls. It's actually exciting for me to hear about other people's stories of how we all got here, you know?
Merkley???: We got here because we had NO CHOICE . Charlie picked us... now TAKE OFF YOUR SHIRT AND SHOW US THEM PRISON TATS!
