Soft was all about creating a shoot that was exactly what it says: soft. Ambrosia is simply beautiful with an amazing body and she knows how to model. The style of this shoot lent itself to her and Jen’s make-up was perfect for what I wanted to achieve.

It was a good afternoon/evening as I also got New Wave (Nov 2007) on the same day. Jen was solid on both make-up jobs. Ambrosia brought her “A-Game” and to be honest she seems to model almost effortlessly. It’s a true pleasure to work with her and I think it shows.

-Robert Henry

This set came about because one of our biggest supporters, Jerry, invited us to shoot at his hot tub (yes, if you’ve got a unique location, Toxic Goddess will come to you). Once we got the idea of what the location looked like, I pretty much gave Jennifer Marks carte blanche on the makeup. I chose a cinematic “fire and ice” lighting set up.

The makeup works brilliantly with this set because it’s already messed up before we even started shooting! As the water made that eye makeup run, it just continued to look like the original design.

The outfit and makeup inspired Selkie to give me a combination of moody/goofy/sultry/flirtatious looks which reminds me a lot of The Joker (make a mental note: Selkie as The Joker).

All of this comes together as a highly unusual glamour shoot, with moments of high art when she moves entirely into the water. In fact, I can back up that statement by mentioning that a photo from this set is running right this moment in the Dirty Show in Detroit Michigan!

- Dirk Hooper

This was shot on the first night I worked with Selkie. It’s a straight glamour shoot and one of the few times that I’ve done something with her where I just let her be pretty. She’s happy to indulge my own weird proclivities (see the Poison Elf series), so I take advantage of that, but never forget she’s also an excellent glamour model too.

- Dirk Hooper

I love this shoot. Selkie and I were wrapping up a fantasty shoot with her in elf ears that we shot outdoors. When we got back we wanted to get another shoot in, and since I’m a big geek, I asked her to keep the elf ears. We decided to punk her out and I really like what we got here.

Selkie did a magnificent job on this shoot. I told her to just bring all the attitude she had and she certainly delivered!

We’re going to do another set with this “character” soon and I can’t wait to see what we get!

- Dirk Hooper

I had the idea for this shoot about two years earlier with another model. As it turned out, I didn’t have all the elements lined up until this shoot. I’m so glad I waited! The background and lighting is perfect. Danger Darling did a fantastic job on the makeup and Leila was brilliant in this shoot.

This set has about 50 gallery worthy shots! That’s kind of nuts. If you get one shot out of a set that you’d hang, then you’re happy… to get so many awesome shots makes me ecstatic!

I think Col. John “Hannibal” Smith said it best… “I love it when a plan comes together.”

- Dirk Hooper

Most of the time you have you have to either beg or cajole a model to do a bondage shoot, so imagine how happy I was when Ambrosia ASKED to do a bondage shoot! I had a rig in mind just in case we had time for an extra shoot, so this basically fell into place brilliantly.

I don’t think this would have been half the set if Jennifer Marks hadn’t done the makeup and hair. That beautiful but edgy makeup and that punky Misfits hair makes this a standout shoot.

Ambrosia does such an amazing job with shoots like this. I often have three or four expressions to choose from a given pose and she’s an endless well of poses, so editing is always a treat and a challenge.

This shoot was done six feet from the “Hypnogogic Hallucinogen” shoot.

- Dirk Hooper

A writer friend of mine once referred to a mass of butterflies flying together as “organized chaos.” That’s sort of how I feel about this shoot, Sanitarium. The shoot was partially inspired by the character Pod from Dan Schaffer’s comic Dogwitch. Aries and I had done a couple of shoots where she played Violet Grimm the Dogwitch for Dan’s Spitting Nails contest. We got some great pics and each won a piece of original art for our efforts. Neat.

This shoot was intended to to be a crazy, psychedlic, bizarre trip. Jen’s make-up was an excellent exercise that let her do something other than typical glamour/beauty. I asked her to shake things up a bit and she obliged. Aries’ attitude was really great. At times vulnerable, other times sexy and yet other times maniacal, she delivered so much stuff that I had to make some harsh cuts and still had a ton of pics. For me it was tough to pare it down because the variety became representative of what I wanted the shoot to be about: conflictive insanity.

So that’s why there are so many pics (and the appearance of nets, umbrellas and green lights). Enjoy.

- Robert Henry

Sometimes a great shoot comes from the silliest of things. Selkie got a rubber ducky made of chocolate for Easter and wanted to do a bathroom shoot. She showed up with all the props (and the ducky) and just had fun.

For me, the challenge was just telling the story, capturing all the action and making sure I got her from the best angles. Selkie has a joie de vivre (yep, I just pulled out some French on your ass) that makes shoots like this very simple.

My favorite shots came from when Selkie got that mischievous look in her eyes and started heading for me and the camera. I told her she could get me wet, but NOT THE CAMERA! So, who ended up getting shot with the water gun? Well, that was Robert… who was just off camera.

- Dirk Hooper

When I received a chocolate duck for Easter, it looked so much like a real toy duck that I couldn’t eat it. Finally, I decided to take a picture of it, so I could eat it and still have the picture. But the picture didn’t do it justice… I thought it was way too cool for a snapshot like that. So I started thinking what I could do to make the treat as memorable as it could be, and came up with an idea of this photo shoot where I am playing in a bathtub with other toys, and the duck blends in well enough that you’d never guess it was food. Then I start to play with the duck and then… BITE IT’S HEAD OFF! You never saw it coming!! Surprise! I am an evil duck head eater!! Except Dirk already told you it was chocolate, so the surprise is foiled. That’s ok; they are still fun pictures. So much fun, in fact, that I forgot I was supposed to try to be pretty and just played, which is why my faces get a little crazy here… The person who gave me the duck was amused when I told them what I’d done with it.

- Toxic Goddess Selkie

This was a one-shot concept set-up that turned into a full blown set. I picked up a metallic curtain about a year and a half ago and waited until the model and the moment was right. To pull this off right I really needed Jennifer Marks to do the makeup.

My idea was to do a “silver” shoot, which would be shiny with blown-out highlights. I left the makeup and styling to Jennifer and she came up with her usual brilliant work.

Toxic Goddess Ambrosia has such great skin and an almost limitless ability to pose within a confined space, that she was a great choice for this shoot. The title “Hypnagogic Hallucination” was a term that Ambrosia taught us while getting ready for the set and I thought it fit nicely with these photos.

- Dirk Hooper