Digital Artist Dave Charsley

"Synthetic Generation Two" shoot
Today's futuristic "Synthetic Generation Two" shoot went very well. I was honoured to have four great models in the shape of Sarah-in-Tortureland,

wanderlustzero, Restless Oblivion and Sweet Tart. I'd shot

wanderlustzero before at 2008's WGW but it was great to have him come visit Birmingham and his images are looking great. Thanks also to Sweet Tart, as this was her first shoot with me and I hope her introduction wasn't too bad and she'll come again in the future!

LtoR: Restless Oblivion, Wanderlust, Sarah-in-Tortureland, Sweet Tart and me.

Sin City
Unfortunately my first group shoot of the year was right in the middle of Britain's cold snap and two of the models cancelled, throwing doubt whether the shoot would go ahead. I spent the whole morning checking the weather forecast and worrying if we were going to be trapped in the studio by the falling snow! As it turned out, everything was fine and my friend Neo Geisha came along to replace at least one of the missing models. So here are some of the results from our "Sin City" shoot. I doubt very much if I have to explain where my inspiration came from, those of you that have never seen the graphic novels will have seen the film. The models of course are Neo Geisha and the wonderful

satanicangel666 who I begged to do one last group shoot before she retires at the awfully old age of thirty! LOL! Next week I'll share some of the images I created with the other model that made it The Oxidising Angel.

This weekend is my "Synthetic Generation Two" shoot, which is a encore to a series of images I created with Restless Oblivion in 2008. Although I was really pleased with what we shot, I've always wanted to expand on the ideas and throw some other models into the mix. So that's Sunday, so lets hope it doesn't snow!

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Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Epica - Beyond Belief

The Art of War
These are the last set of images from my "Cyanide Cheesecake" shoot and have a bit of a different look to the other two sets. They were taken with Aimee L'amour, Neo Geisha and Bea Sinful right at the end of the afternoon when we'd done our original theme to death and I wanted to try something different. My thanks to everyone involved and to

bass_prin_prin who'd left by the time we shot these.

Anyone who wants to see all the "Cyanide Cheesecake" images can find them, with some extras ones I haven't posted on Live Journal here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/davecharsley/sets/72157622900719332/

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Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Icon of Coil - Dead enough for Life

Damnation Angels
The first Sunday of the year, I had the pleasure of photographing an excellent Symphonic Metal band from Yorkshire called the "Damnation Angels". I'd worked with Dawn Trigg, their keyboard player years ago, when she was a model and it was her that had suggested that I create new promotion images. Although they had some wonderful EP artwork and some great live photos, they didn't really have any good studio stuff they could use for posters and press releases. They'd also had new bass player Rick join the ranks and so they really needed some new photos with him in the line up. So my brief was to create two full group shots and five individual solo images of each band member with a very dark moody feel. Like most bands, they had a very distinct vision of how they wanted to be portrayed, but I was lucky that they could convey this quite clearly and I think the images work pretty well.

Dawn, Maestro, Lewis, John and Rick - Damnation Angels
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Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Damnation Angels - Bringer of Light

"Privates on Parade Five", "Naughty, Naughty", "Keep 'em Flying" and "Privates on Parade Six"
Here's the second instalment of my 1940's shoot entitled "Cyanide Cheesecake" with models Aimee L'amour, Neo Geisha,

bass_prin_prin and Bea Sinful. As I explained last week, these images were influenced by the cheesecake artwork on the American bombers of World War two. I tried several different approaches before I settled on the right look but this "tongue in cheek military pin-up" seemed to work the best. The armour plated background was drawn in photoshop but the camouflage net was real and kindly lent to me by a territorial soldier friend of mine.

In other news, I managed to join all the other photographers I know and get in a snow shoot this week. The main idea was to get the "December" image for a calendar

satanicangel666 will be releasing for next year but I'm sure she'll let me share some of the images she doesn't need in a week or so.

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Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Within Temptation - All I Need (Acoustic Version)

"Sin City" shoot
As I predicted, yesterday's "Sin City" shoot didn't go without it's problems. Two of the models cancelled the day before but I was lucky that Neo Geisha was able to join the team and atleast make the models up to three. So the team that managed to make it on the day was

satanicangel666, Neo Geisha and The Oxidising Angel. As many of you will know,

satanicangel666 is retiring from modelling in March when she hits thirty, so it was great to get her involved in one last group shoot. If the shots I took yesterday are anything to go by, she'll be going out on a high!

Me, Neo Geisha, The Oxidising Angel and Satanic Angel

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Dream Theater - The Count of Tuscany

"One for the Boys", "Half Way to Heaven" and "Privates on Parade Two and Three"
Well my start to 2010 began just as busy as 2009 ended! I had my first shoot of the year with the excellent symphonic metal band Damnation Angels last weekend. They wanted some shots with their new bass player and some group images they could use for future promotion. They were all really nice to meet and I count myself as a fan, so it was a great experience all around.

Today's first images of the year are from my "Cyanide Cheesecake" shoot with Aimee L'amour, Bea Sinful, Neo Giesha and

bass_prin_prin. We based the theme around the American bomber art of the second world war and like usual I've taken elements that I admire and mixed them up a little. Bea Sinful came down from Derbyshire for this shoot and I must say, she was an excellent model! All the models took really well to Pin-Up though and although it's not a style I'm used to, I think I may revisit it later in the year.

Snow permitting, this weekend will be my first group shoot of 2010. I'm really looking forward to it, so I'll be gutted if the snow spoils things for us!

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Current Mood: pessimistic
Current Music: Damnation Angels - The Black Cancer

Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all my friends on LJ! I hope you have a great celebration and 2010 is a wonderful year for everyone!

Current Mood: happy

"Captives", "Stealing Broken Shadows Three", "Distorted Dreams Two" and "Purgatory"
I'm coming to the end of my image posting this year, with another set from my "Distorted Dreams" shoot. The team was

thevioletraven, Sarah-in-Tortureland,

etoile_violet and Lars Wickett, drummer with the rock band KINN. As I've explained before, the shoot was influenced by one of my favourite painters Luis Royo. Or that was the starting point, from there we took elements of his art and developed them into something new. Anyone who wants to see the full set, including a couple I haven't posted here can I find them on my Flickr account here.

In other news, I had a phone call last weekend with some very lovely news. My friends and models

peterallison and

gg_caelia are getting married. They met at my "Joy Division" shoot in March 2006 and have been pretty inseparable since! They make a wonderful couple, so I wish them immense happiness!

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Current Mood: touched
Current Music: Dream Theater - Pull Me Under

More "Distorted Dreams"
Here's another four images from my Luis Royo influenced "Distorted Dreams" shoot. First of all we have

thevioletraven and male model Lars Wickett, turning up the heat with "Rage and Rapture". Then under the cut, you will find Raven and Lars joined by

etoile_violet and Sarah-in-Tortureland for "Children of a Banished God", "The Offering" and "Dark Matter", I always say how lucky I am with my models but to get them to work with this level of intimacy, when they've only just met, is a testament to just how professional these models are!

This week's work on my "Cyanide Cheesecake" images has gone very well. It took me a little time to get my head round the 1940's cheesecake theme but they're looking great now and I'm looking forward to sharing them in the New Year. Very different for me but they've still got the Declinegothica feel.

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Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Sirenia - The Seventh Summer

"Cyanide Cheesecake" shoot
This afternoon I had my "Cyanide Cheesecake" shoot with Aimee L'amour,

bass_prin_prin, Bea Sinful and Neo Geisha. We went for a 1940's feel and used the fantastic "nose art" that used to be painted on the American bombers as a starting point. This was my last shoot of the year and will be the first set of images I post in the New Year, so you'll have to wait until Friday 1st of Jan 2010, to see how these turned out!

Amiee L'amour, Bea Sinful, Dave Charsley, Holly Eden and Neo Geisha

"Nephilim", "Distorted Dreams One", "Orphans of the Storm" and "Divine Oblivion"

Over the next three weeks I'll be sharing my last images of 2009, before I wrap things up for Christmas and start planning for the New Year. My "Distorted Dreams" shoot featured thevioletraven and Sarah-in-Tortureland alongside etoile_violet and new male model Lars Wickett. Lars works as one of the sound engineers at the studio where I now shoot, so he was useful addition to the team and he wasn't a bad model either! The shoot itself started with a theme influenced by one of my favourite painters, the Italian artist Luis Royo. We took elements of his work, like the tattoos and the sexual chemistry and mixed it up a little, so I'm not sure how much of the original theme is left in the final images! Still, that is what making art is all about and I'm pleased with what we've created!

This coming weekend is my 1940's influenced "Cyanide Cheescake" shoot which will be the very last shoot of the year and will be my first images to get posted in 2010 and feature my new Declinegothica logo. So more on that on Sunday.

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Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Delain - Frozen

Bizarre Magazine
I'm not a great fan of Bizarre Magazine as I think it treats it's photographers with utter contempt! But congratulations atleast to The Oxidising Angel, who's "Caged" image is in the Ultra Vixen section. It would have been nice to have been credited for the image or paid, as they're making money off me allowing the image to be downloaded for mobiles though. And they've even cut the Declinegothica logo off the bottom!

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Epica - Design your Universe

The Druidess of Midian and Nikolai at WGW 2009
One of the very nice things about this year's Whitby Goth Weekend, was spending two evenings with the very lovely

druidess1982 and her partner Nikolai. I consider her to be a friend, yet we've not had much chance to see each other since we worked together in Manchester in the Summer of 2008.

avatarsteve and myself were hoping to make up for this and get plenty of shooting in over the weekend but unfortunately it was already dark by the time

druidess1982 and Nikolai made it over from their accommodation outside Whitby. So for first shoot on the Friday, we shot some night images overlooking the Spa, accompanied by Leed's photographer Simon Cliff. Simon is a bit of a Whitby veteran and had come over to observe how I worked with my strobist equipment. We only shot for a few minutes before we bumped into

devolutionmag and chatted to them, but he got some sort of idea of my lighting techniques.

For the Saturday evening, we shot in the communal lounge of our B&B before we went out to see Psy-Doll and Uninvited Guest. As you can see in the images, the lounge was dominated by a massive fireplace. It was only really possible to shoot towards the main window or use the fireplace, so I decided to make it a feature. It didn't make the best shoot location but it was a lot warmer inside and there was a storm coming that really hit the east coast that night. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

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Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: W.A.S.P - Burn

Distorted Dreams shoot
This afternoon I had my "Distorted Dreams" shoot with my old friends

thevioletraven and Sarah-in-Tortureland, along with new friends

etoile_violet and Lars Wickett. The theme was our take on the wonderful paintings of artist Luis Royo, a very strong theme and one that will take some serious photoshopping in the weeks to come! Thanks to all the lovely models and Neo Geisha, for helping out behind the scenes.

LtoR: Violet Raven, Sarah-in-Tortureland, Lars Wickett, Etoile and Dave Charsley (Picture by Neo Geisha)

The Sisters Todd - Whitby 2009
In the middle of the Summer,

avatarsteve and myself got approached by the beautiful Stockton-on-Tees model Violet Magenta, about shooting while we were at the Whitby Goth Weekend. Violet Magenta had planned to be one of the models at our big group shoot the previous year but flu had got the better of her and so this was a great opportunity. We bounced a couple of ideas around between ourselves and new model Flamin Hell and came up with a homage to Sweeney Todd. Our original idea was to have the models playing Sweeney's sisters on holiday in Whitby but straight away we came up against some problems. First of all, the Victorian bathing huts we'd planned for our location had been put away for the Winter. Then secondly, it rained terribly on the day we'd put aside for the shoot! Thankfully our B&B came to the rescue and allowed us to shoot in their dining room, which was really nice of them but meant we had a host of new problems to address. So here's my homage to Mrs Lovett's pies and Sweeney Todd, "The Sisters Todd".

My huge thanks to the wonderful models Violet Magenta and Flamin Hell and for

avatarsteve for going to so much trouble creating us the props.

This coming weekend is my "Distorted Dreams" shoot which is another homage, this time to one of my favourite artists; Luis Royo. As usual, I won't tempt fate and tell you the models involved but they're a great mix of experience and new faces, so a great team!

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Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Kiss - Detroit Rock City

"City Nights" with Neo Geisha

I'm back from another Whitby Goth Weekend and this year was quite different from other years I've gone to. There was a lot of my friends missing but I did manage to catch up with avatarsteve and his wife Dan, druidess1982 and Nikolai, Leeds photographer Simon Cliff, models Violet Magenta and Flamin Hell, the newly engaged davefish and keris , frozen_amaranth, Shadowkat, devolutionmag, nevroli and fuzzygoth. I also had a nice chat with Biff Byford from Saxon about his latest album and his move back to Yorkshire from France. One of the highlights of the weekend for me though, was seeing Uninvited Guest play at the Resolution on the Saturday, a tremendous band!

Today's images are from a night shoot I did last week with the lovely Neo Geisha. Shooting at night always adds new challenges and this time I wanted to keep some of the ambient light from the city in the background. I ended up giving Neo Geisha a quick burst of light from three flash guns arranged around her but let the shutter remain open for a little while to soak up the ambient light. It was a bit of a hit and miss affair but we managed to get a small set, four of which I'm posting today.

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Current Mood: cold
Current Music: Epica - Kindom of Heaven

"Silhouette One" and "Rising Sun Two, Three and Four"
I'm posting my weekly images early today as I'm off to Whitby tomorrow morning for the Goth weekend. So looking forward to meeting some old friends and making some new ones and doing a couple of shoots while I'm there. As of my last post, today's images are all from September's "Silhouette" shoot with Amaeya, Neo Geisha and Arcane Kai. These also have a strong Japanese influence and the "Rising Sun" images have a massive nod in the Manga direction.

I actually shot with Neo Geisha again this last Monday and she was excellent as usual! We did some night shots in Birmingham city centre, with the city lights in the background and I'll hopefully share those with you next Friday.

I've only posted my favourite images from the "Silhouette" shoot, so anyone who wants to see the full set, can find them here -http://www.flickr.com/photos/davecharsley/sets/72157622466407784/

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Current Mood: hyper
Current Music: Tristania - Equilibrium

"Silhouette Three","Dragon", " Lifeforce" and "Enchantment"
Today's images from my "Silhouette" shoot, introduce two new members to my team; male model Arcane Kai and the beautiful Neo Geisha. Along with principle model Amaeya, we created a dark and gritty vision, where peoples grip on reality is not quite what it was. And where losing hold, actually means breaking down to nothing!
Although it wasn't planned before hand, the whole shoot developed a strong Manga / J-Horror theme, as we all realised we shared a love of all things Japanese. I think my "Silhouette" and "Lifeforce" images owe a lot to the movie "Kairo" or it's American version, "Pulse" in particular.

So less than a week to go now to this year's Whitby Goth Weekend! I've got another little mini night shoot next week before I go and then I've got atleast two shoots while I'm there but I'm hoping I'll have more when I get there!

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Current Mood: hyper
Current Music: Epica - The Last Crusade (live)

Etoile in Moseley Park
I'm continuing my brief interlude today with some test shots I took of new model

etoile_violet in a local private park. These images were really taken to see how

etoile_violet worked in front of the camera and to see if she was a possible new recruit for my team. For someone who'd never modelled before, she was rather excellent and she'll be joining in on a full group shoot next month.

My plans for the upcoming Whitby Goth Weekend are coming together. As well as my pre-arranged "Sisters Todd" shoot with

avatarsteve on the Sunday, we now have a very beautiful and well known model for the Friday too, so things are looking up!

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Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: Terminal Choice - Eiszeit

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