jeison photographs by douglas simonson
JEISON Photographs by Douglas Simonson
First published in the United States of America in 2013 by Douglas Simonson Fine Arts PO Box 22278 Lincoln NE 68542 Copyright Š 2013 by Douglas Simonson ISBN: 978-1-937605-21-6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, recorded, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior consent of the publisher. Book design by Douglas Simonson
FROM THE PUBLISHER: IMPORTANT NOTE TO MAXIMIZE YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THIS E-BOOK: If you are reading this e-book on a device that allows it, please set your e-book reader to Two Pages. Most PDF viewing applications have a menu called VIEW. In that menu there are usually choices like Single Page, Two Pages, Continuous Scroll, etc. Be sure to choose Two Pages. This will set your PDF reader to display content in 2-page spreads (except for the Cover, which will always display as a single page). This book was designed so that each 2-page spread contains facing images that complement and strengthen each other, so viewing it this way gives you maximum visual impact and allows you to view the images as the artist and designer intended. (If you have it set correctly, this page should be displaying on the RIGHT side of your screen, with a dark grey blank page showing on the LEFT.)
MEETING JEISON
Above: Interviewing Jeison on the terrace of Esedeku, my friend Julio’s bar in Santo Domingo. Left: I did a series of test shots of Jeison in just a towel. He passed the test!
I went to the Dominican Republic for the first time in November 2012. I didn’t know a soul, but as always, I trusted that things would fall into place, and they did. A couple of days after I arrived, I met a guy named Julio who quickly became a good friend. Julio owns a bar in the Zona Colonial (the happening part of Santo Domingo), and he soon became my fellow huntsman in the search for hot new models. We didn’t have to go far to find my first candidate. Jeison works at Julio’s bar. He’s a bartender, but more importantly, he’s a bodybuilder with an amazing body. He’s also cute and friendly and a little shy. These are all things I like to find in a model.
Another shot of Jeison from his interview.
One potential problem was that Jeison didn’t want to pose completely nude. In the past I’ve been pretty inflexible about this. But these days, I really don’t care that much. After all these years of insisting that it’s all about the penis, I’m realizing it was never all about the penis. So I’ve found a hot model who is happy to show everything BUT the head of his dick? What the hell, I can deal with that. So when I interviewed Jeison (on the terrace of Julio’s bar, which he was kind enough to allow me to use), we agreed it would be a “no completamente desnudo” photo shoot, and he could hide his privates behind a towel, shorts, his hand, or whatever was handy. He
Left: Myself and Julio waiting for the model to arrive on the morning of the shoot. Lower Left: Jeison arrives...on time!
liked the sound of that, I thought it would be an intriguing experiment, and it was going to cost me less than full nudity. Now all I needed was a location. Finding the model(s) is always a challenge. But after that there are always two more challenges: finding a location, and finding transportation to and from the location. I’d recently met the owner of a Santo Domingo gay hotel, a guy named Gilbert who was originally from Miami, and he just happened to have a van and driver he was willing to let me use for a really good price. So that part was taken care of. Now I just needed a nice, secluded beach close to the city.
Left: Arriving at Playa Guayacanes. Right: Julio does Jeison’s back.
All the beaches within an hour or two of Santo Domingo are touristy and overbuilt, but I thought there must be a little cove or inlet or something somewhere along that long coastline where we could find some privacy. So Julio, myself, Jeison and the driver piled into the van, and went looking for that beach I was picturing. We then proceeded to waste an hour and a half of precious time trying to find a beach that wasn’t covered with kiosks and beach chairs and umbrellas. It wasn’t happening, and we were all getting very frustrated. It was getting so late I had to stop somewhere and shoot some pictures, or risk wasting the whole excursion. So finally I just gave up and said to the driver, What the hell, stop here, and “here” was a place called Playa Guayacanes. Like every
beach we’d seen that morning, it was not what I wanted, but because it was midmorning on a weekend, the only people around were a few vendors and some fishermen. I looked around at the palm trees and the fishing boats and thought, you know, this is kind of picturesque. And it’s not a completely nude shoot, so it doesn’t absolutely have to be a secluded beach. Maybe I can make this work. So we unloaded our gear and Jeison stripped down and we got started. To my great surprise, all the stuff I had been so adamant about avoiding--beach chairs, fishing boats, kiosks, etc.--turned out to be great props, and the end result was a successful photo shoot with a stunning model. This book showcases some of the best moments of that photo shoot. Enjoy! --Douglas Simonson
the photographs
With a model at a photo shoot in California.
ABOUT THE ARTIST/ PHOTOGRAPHER
D
ouglas Simonson has been making art since he was old enough to hold a crayon—and he began taking photographs not long after that. He grew up in the cattle country of western Nebraska, not happy about it. He didn’t know he was gay, he just knew he didn’t fit in. Later, he figured it out, and from that revelation found his focus and his passion as an artist.
He moved to Hawaii in 1971 and lived there for 41 years, building a life and career based on his passion for the male nude and his ability to capture that subject in a myriad of approaches and media. As his skill grew, he was able to build a worldwide collectorship for his drawings and paintings. Click here to visit the artist’s fine-art website. It wasn’t until Simonson had been an artist for almost 30 years that he began to realize what a powerful body of work his photographs represented, and that they deserved to be shared. In 2008 he began exhibiting and selling his photographs, and they were an instant hit among his collectors. Click here to see some of Simonson’s currently available photographic prints.
On this page, a few samples of Douglas Simonson’s painting and drawing work. You can see more at www.douglassimonson.com.
Simonson has produced several e-books of his photographs, such as Tropical; he’s also created books of his paintings and drawings, like 120 Male Nude Drawings.
Not long after Simonson began exhibiting his photographs, he created his first e-book of photographs, called Tropical. He followed that with an e-book of early drawings and paintings called Classic Simonson. That was just the beginning; the artist has now created over forty e-books, and there always more in the works. Click here to see Simonson e-books currently available for download or purchase on CD. Douglas Simonson is available for commission work, portraiture and otherwise. He’s not a diva in this respect, welcoming the challenge of creating beautiful art while working within specific requirements of color, size, and even,
Above, two Simonson portrait commissions reflecting the versatility the artist brings to any project.
to some extent, style. Click here to e-mail Douglas Simonson for more information on portrait and photo commissions. In 2011 Douglas Simonson left Hawaii to begin an indefinite period of living on the road, traveling the world while creating art, both photographic and otherwise. At this writing the artist is still traveling. You can stay tuned to the artist’s odyssey by reading the On the Road series of blogs in his Artist’s Diary. While Simonson may be anywhere in the world as you read this, he can always be reached by e-mail. Click here to send an e-mail to the artist.
The artist (far right, black speedos) relaxes during a photo shoot at Angra dos Reis, Brazil.