Comtesse started with the second session of the Bohemian Nudes photo series. Please read about the history and explanation of the Bohemian Nudes series in the Rebeca photo below. I went to the Colours of Ostrava festival in Ostrava, Czech Republic last July. I went there to mainly see Iggy and the Stooges. (Comtesse´s favorite band. Mine too!) I had always wanted to photograph Iggy and the Stooges and I finally had the opportunity. I went through lots of trouble and managed to get a photo pass. I was under the stage and clicked away thinking I got the most amazing photos of Iggy and the band. I went out to celebrate afterwards. (little did I know, but later I found out, something was wrong with my camera and it all screwed up and most of my photos did not turn out at all. I did not know it at the time. I should have checked the camera as I was shooting away, but I was too carried away by the moment. When I found out a few days later I was destroyed. It was the curse of Iggy! Which I will have to explain when I have the nerve to post the surreal abstract images which I can say I did purposely to be artistic. To be continued at a later posting) Off I went to hit the bars with the help of the bad influence of Chris Hughes. I was kind of drunk when I saw the towering figure of a blond haired amazon. I struck up a conversation and mentioned about the photo series I was doing called Bohemian Nudes. To my surprise Comtesse agreed to do it. She lived in Pilzen and would make a point of coming to Prague to do a session.
Comtesse finally made it to Prague and we met with fellow Bohemian Nude Rebeca and went to a pub to talk. We did not manage to do the photo session that night. Comtesse managed to drink both of us under the table. The important thing was that we all bonded and that was the intention. We learned a lot about each other and what I remember is this: Comtesse as young as she is, is a master tattoo artist. She worked at her mother´s tattoo parlour in Pilzen, helping to run it and also to do tattooing. She never seems to get enough tattoos and I am sure when she is older she will have 100 tattoos on her. She was born on a rainy afternoon in 1990. She was twelve years old when she got her first tattoo and decided to be tattoo artist. She carries on with the spirit of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, mixed with a bit of doing fire shows. She loves to spit out fire. She draws comics, plays the bass and drinks absinthe. She is slowly creating leopard patterns on her body. She is a model and generally living and learning life.
We finally did get together and do the photo session. We were originally going to go to abandoned buildings to take the photos, but we came across a mutual friend that had a projector with lots of colours to play with. Rebeca, Comtesse and I decided to take the idea of duality with various colours, light and dark to see where we could go with it. With the help of shared ideas between the three of us, we had a really productive session with satisfying results. This photo is one of them. There are more detailed photos with colours and nudity, but I thought it best to show this photo of Comtesse and Rebeca´s photo below here on the site and to have the more explicit photos specifically for gallery shows and for those that are truly interested in the collection. I am doing it this way, first out of respect for the models Comtesse and Rebeca, for their work and images, also the photos are very special and not to be broadcast all over the place. The photos would lose their magic for me, if that makes sense. I hope that it does. I like this photo. In some ways it reminds me of a painting with a bit of Bohemian magic. Comtesse is now working with her mother in Liverpool. Her mother has a new tattoo parlour there. Comtesse plans to travel the world and experience life to the fullest as soon as she can.