Dan Kitchens posts
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Cacia at Lost Lake
After setting up camp at Lost Lake (near Mt. Hood in Oregon), we quickly ran down to the lake and took in the view. We had to snap a pic of the only person we saw on the lake. once they were gone, Cacia Zoo and I ditched our bathing suits and went skinny dipping! The lake was far warmer and more clear than we had imagined, and we couldn't believe no one else was on or in the water. We swam out toward the middle of the lake where we could see snow capped Mt. Hood peaking out over the treeline. I remember that Cacia was going through a lot of...
Coming in a week.... Cacia in Oregon
In June 2015 Cacia Zoo and I did a bit of road tripping outside Portland Oregon and camped by the shore of Lost Lake in the Hood National Forest. Despite it being summer already there were lots of empty campgrounds and we had the lake to ourselves. You KNOW we had to go skinny dipping.Besides photos we shot in the forests around Mt. Hood, I also have edited together a 3 1/2 minute video of footage we shot while swimming in Lost Lake. No music, not too many cuts, just lots of lake footage of freedom and joy in the clear waters of the lake.I will...
Spring in Bear Canyon - Jess (BTS)
This set is now Archived and available only to Archive Patrons and above. Upgrade to check it out!In seeing these pictures I remember now that this hike was on April 20th, 2016. No wonder I made sure to document some smoking!
Island in the Stream
Jess sunning herself in the chilly creek the runs through Bear Canyon on a Spring afternoon.Angeles National Forest, CA. April 20, 2016.Patrons will have access to as many as 54 images and two movies from this day of hiking in the mountains last Spring.
A Maker on Mt. Wilson - Celia
Shooting with my friend Celia inevitable yields adorable results. I never intended to post these images, but some patrons requested more of Celia, so they got to see a bunch of images from this shoot I originally planned as reference for a painting of Celia nude, out in nature, surrounded by her favorite things, while working on her latest project. The location (and the completely cloudless skies) weren't exactly what i was hoping for in the reference shots, but the collection of goods Celia brought up the mountain, and of course her playfu...
A Maker on Mt. Wilson
Celia checking progress on the foam devil horns she was in the process of making when i asked her to lug some of her favorite things up near the top of Mt. Wilson for an early morning photo shoot on a surprisingly sunny day this past winter.Celia in the Angeles National Forest, CA. January 2017
Blue - Chantelle (Archive)
For those with access to the Archive ($20 pledge or more), I think I forgot to mention I uploaded this cute set of Chantelle from 2009 to the Archive.
Celia in Her Pool
I am so grateful to have friends who are generous with their time and are game to let me photograph them anywhere. I realize now that since last fall, I have shot Celia nude on mountain tops, in an autumn forest, body painted her in black light, got her topless with her dog in her room, and now photographed her underwater. She always has enthusiasm and a smile that make these situations feel like anything but work!Celia in Pasadena, CA. July, 2017.
First Underwater Shoot of 2017
As I said yesterday, I went off to my friend Celia's house yesterday to have a swim day. It was mostly a swim day - her dog has, seriously, an endless amount of energy and loves swimming, so our attempts to make pretty underwater images were constantly being photobombed by this determined canine. At some points we had to give in and just invite her into the shoot. Not to worry though, we also got her out of the pool at times so Celia could pretend to be graceful to shoot some colorful photos. We got some good ones!I am not sure now whether ...
The Maker - Celia
Some patrons requested more of my friend Celia. I showed her the comments and her response was "Oh gosh! When are we shooting next, cutie?" I am about to head off to her house to swim and shoot a bit in her pool (this Los Angeles heat wave blisters on), but in the meantime, i thought I would start posting a few images from this bit of shooting we did back in January. It wasn't a proper "shoot" of any sort. I was actually just trying to get some reference images for an idea for a painting I had in mind. This being Celia thoug...
Alex in Winter (BTS)
This set is now Archived and available only to Archive Patrons and above. Upgrade to check it out!Due to the cold weather, this was probably the quickest shoot I have ever done. Alex was game enough, but its not like she has a lot of natural insulation, so i actually didn't have time to shoot much "behind the scenes" of our process. Here are some candid moments though that i did end up capturing that day.Also, this set goes to show that if you are driving around in nature, you never know what might be going in cars parked along the ...
Winter is Here - Alex
Alex and I actually had intended just to go on a long hike in a canyon much lower in the mountains, but as we pulled up to the turn off, we saw dense fog higher up Highway 2 and decided to go check it out first. After 25 more minutes we pulled off the side of the road at a random spot and walked into the chaparral and found ourselves in this cold and snow and fog in the Angeles National Forest.Alex in the San Gabriel Mountains, CA. February, 2017.
Winter is Here - Alex
I am leaving Japan today to return to Los Angeles, which is currently broiling in a heat wave. Checking the weather to see my neighborhood is currently 95°F (35°C) both makes me want to stay in Japan, and also makes me long for winter again.A couple other things inspiring my decision to start posting this set of Alex now (which I hadn't planned to post until autumn). Firstly is that Game of Thrones Season 7 premieres this weekend (Woot! Finally!) and this shoot is probably as close as my work gets to GoT, especially now that winter has tr...
Frog and Fog
The last several days I have been off in the countryside of Japan. The REAL Japan as far as I am concerned. Far from the ugly chaos and consumerism of Tokyo, most of Japan is covered in densely forested steep mountains dotted with small villages, and in between mountains are small, fertile valleys filled with productive farm land. My wife and I have spent mornings wandering these places looking for animals (weird bugs, leeches, frogs, deer, and monkeys have all been sighted), tasting the real food growing voraciously in the fields, and learning...
Before and After
Water has a strange effect on people. Even if I have just met this person literally minutes for we get in the pool, and even if they have never skinny dipped or been photographed naked, there is something so comforting about water, that basically everyone I have photographed in water has been soothed by the protective nature of the water till they were able to push through whatever mental barriers they may have had. Often this is precisely why they have asked me to photograph them in the water. Larger and far more images from this shoot coming ...
Getting reward prints ready to send out...
Those in the $25 and up pledge tiers receive a signed print each month. Getting some ready to send out in July. Thank you all immensely for your support!
A Panda off Rottnest
Just to my $20 and up patrons...One time (May 2011 to be exact) when my wife and I were in Australia for exhibitions with our Australia gallery, we stayed in Perth for a week for the opening of our show at their location in that city. We finally got to meet in person an art professor at a university there who goes by name Panda (and the adorable name matches her charming constant smile) that we had known for years on the internet. A day after the opening she agreed to take us over to nearby Rottnest island for some exploring.We walked around th...
Surrounded By Magic - Sara
I had so little expectations about shooting with artist Sara Haase. We had never met in person before, only talked online and had a lot of mutual friends. I think maybe we both really just wanted to get in a pool, and this was a good excuse. This is kind of how a lot of my underwater shoots come about - its a good excuse for skinny dipping (if i am shooting with friends, i usually am skinny dipping too - it would be unprofessional in most photography situations perhaps, but in water its hard to resist!).Maybe its because Sara grew up in Orange ...
Jenny Jumping In
This set is now Archived and available only to Archive Patrons and above. Upgrade to check it out!I don't think I ever get tired of that view of bubbles engulfing light dappled skin as a nude body explodes into water.
Strength and Grace - Jenny
This set of 22 images has been moved to the Archive Folder. To get this set, upgrade to $25 Archive Patron for access - all $5 and $10 posts older than 6 months are available there.The images I made of Jenny sinking in bubbles really caught my eye, and made me want to turn that into a series. Since her shoot I have made every person i shot underwater jump in for images where they are surrounded by and obscured by bubbles. I use one from another shoot as the header image of my Patreon, and tag the images on tumblr and instagram as #sinkinginbubb...
Shimmering Mermaid - Jenny
This set of 22 images has been moved to the Archive Folder. To get this set, upgrade to $25 Archive Patron for access - all $5 and $10 posts older than 6 months are available there.Jenny Redbird play at mermaid, mostly shot soft focus on accident. I just remembered that day my wife was there as well as our friend Frosti from Iceland whose father was the mayor of Reykjavik, and whose mother is Bjork dear friend and spiritual advisor. He also got in the pool for some funny photos (I will include them for BTS patrons, just for fun) and is an all a...
Sinking In - Jenny
i love to work underwater with people who are SUPER comfortable in water. This sounds kind of obvious, but most people who have approached me asking to shoot underwater ('I want to be a mermaid!") don't even realize how uncomfortable they are being UNDER the water. She was the first person whose body innately understood what i wanted a model to do when they jumped into the water - go loose and relaxed and drift from graceful pose gracefully to another graceful pose like a slow motion dance. its not even that easy to say, and much ha...
Summer is coming...
A couple of times i have put my DSLR into its underwater housing with the lens switched to manual focus, and each time it took me a while to notice that the camera wasn't auto focusing from shot to shot (Usually I am just having too much fun swimming around with naked bodies to focus on such details). When I do realize i want to smack myself and have to halt the shoot to pull the camera out of the housing and switch the lens to autofocus.Sometimes though, the soft focus results are pretty interesting. These shots of my pal Jenny ended up ma...
Joe Money in Palos Verdes (BTS)
This set of 16 images and a video is now Archived and available only to Archive Patrons and above. Upgrade to check it out!Behind the scenes images from my shoot with Joe Money in Palos Verdes - blunt, beer, and booty by the sea! I think even from this small collection you can see why I enjoy going out into nature with Joe - always a hoot...
Palos Verdes Winter - Joe Money
More images from my first outdoor shoot with Joe Money. This is one shoot that I really went to town on while editing the RAW image files afterwards. I used the whole shoot to experiment, so you'll notice that there are more strange color treatments compared to most of my shoots. Mostly this was because we did the whole shoot in the early afternoon, much earlier in the day than I would have prefered, so the light wasn't nearly as nice. As a painter/doodler in my actual career, this kind of noodling around with photos is really enjoyable...
Siren Call - Joe Money
Joe was impatient to get outside and shoot in the water, despite the fact that it was JANUARY! She toughed it out for the sake of the art, but that was was COLD, no joke.This set of 20 hi-res images has been moved to the Archive for $25+ subscribers. Upgrade your support to gain access to over 250 archived sets - literally thousands of images and videos!
Likely Shocking - Joe Money
Joe really wanted me to shoot her at the beach or in water. She is a true naturist - she just loves being naked outside. We both live in Los Angeles though. Its a huge, sprawling megalopolis of 17 million people, so it isn't like the beaches are particularly devoid of people, even during winter. This can make it tricky for an afternoon shoot with no planning, but I have a spot in nearby Palos Verdes that I love to go to for tidepooling (I love photographing underwater creatures as much as I do photographing nudes), so I thought to take her ...
At Play in Palos Verdes - Joe
Joe Money was, I think the first person I shot with after they contacted me on Instagram. Joe turned out to be a barrel of laughs and we have shot together many times since, mostly for the sheer enjoyment of each other's company.it seems like I choose my subjects MOSTLY on how much they make me laugh, which doesn't necessarily seem like a recipe for glamorous photos, but it does make LIFE more enjoyable, which is a bit more important to me I suppose.Joe Money in Palos Verdes, CA. January 2016.
Taking a peek!
The wildflower season is passed as spring rips into summer. One joy passes as another begins. Wandering through fields of flowers will soon give way to splashing in the sun. The crazy vibrant season of flowers exploring with my friends (like Celia here) won't soon be forgotten though!
Against the Wall - Cacia (preview)
This was really just a tiny part of the first shoot I ever did with Cacia Zoo, but some brief moments are so productive! I was able to pare it down to a bit under 40 images I liked, and have uploaded them for various patron tiers...
