Model Society

about Leland Ray

Male

“I love to shoot women. I love to dress them up. I want to make them look beautiful. I want to follow them around with cameras because they’re appealing to my eye." -- Brian de Palma

Mostly self taught photographer for 35+ years, my motto is, "simplicity is the soul of beauty." I try to follow this in the way I work and the images I make. That means that whether it's film or digital, I stick to the basics and focus on the person in the image, not the details of how the image was made.

I live in either the buckle of the Bible Belt or in some alternate reality where the female body is an object of shame, so finding models has always been a challenge. At one time I could afford to hire models regularly, but the economy being what it is, I am now relegated to finding models who like my work enough to work with me. Sometimes I do, but mostly I've been photographing buildings and trees. The problem with inanimate objects is that there is no collaboration, no narrow space within which two minds can agree on a common goal.

So TFCD only, at least until I win the lottery. For inexperienced models, for those who "just want to see what modeling is like," simply to get some nice pictures to look at forty years from now, I will do the best I can for you.

That's me.