Guys, Coilhouse Magazine needs your help! Basically, here's the deal: we've entered the magazine into a competition for a $100K business grant that we feel we have a real shot at winning. My knee-jerk reaction to all contests, sweepstakes and competitions is that they're all scams. But this one actually sounds promising, and if we won, it would change everything for us. As a small business, it's hard for us to keep going in this economy, but this could give us the boost we need to really take Coilhouse to the next level.

It literally takes 60 seconds to help out here. You just have to register (they won’t spam you.. unlike me) and vote (it takes 1 click).

STEP ONE: Go here to register: http://shinealight.ivillage.com/register/. I know, registering is super-annoying. This one's relatively painless. Don’t worry about spam – they explicitly say “we will not solicit your email for special offers, product news or other communications.”

STEP TWO: Go to our entry: http://shinealight.ivillage.com/sbo-profile/?ProfileID=9187. Click on “Support This Story, ENDORSE NOW.”

STEP THREE (BONUS ROUND!): If you really, REALLY want to support us and take one extra step, get the word out! Let people know we need support. Post this link on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or whatever: http://coilhouse.net/2009/09/help-coilhouse-win-a-small-business-grant/

Please, please take a minute to vote for us. We're really serious about winning this thing, and every vote counts. Thank you!

OK, I know that LJ is a ghost ship. I should be posting this on a nicely-designed blog that I took the time to make for myself, but that's still in the works, so for now, here it is.

I haven't been doing as much photography, because the magazine has been taking up all my time. But that's OK with me, because I love Coilhouse. It's been an incredible adventure so far, and it just keeps getting better and better.

But I still do photography from time to time! I even update my old-ass website (which I don't have the heart to take apart and rebuild, because even though some of the pictures are way old, I love the way they all look combined). At the end of 2008, I shot a portrait of my friend & fellow editor Meredith Yayanos. Here it is. And yesterday, I had the pleasure of working with Seattle-based choreographer/dancer Finn Von Claret. (check out her amazing work on stage!) This picture definitely borrows a page from one of my earliest inspirations, Albert Watson, and I've also been thinking about that gorgeous Watchmen Portraits book. To me, this picture is like... if Laurie Juspeczyk is the updated version of the 1950s Silk Spectre, this person would be the updated, 1986 version of the 1950s Silhouette: 

Model: Finn Von Claret

Makeup (though you can't see it in this shot): Elizabeth Prokopiak

Wardrobe: Skin.Graft Designs

 

Exciting news!

Issue 01 of Coilhouse is finally out! Coilhouse Magazine, the print incarnation of our blog, is a glossy, full-color 96-page magazine of underground culture and art. There's nothing else like it. I'm one of the editors, and this magazine has been the focus of all my efforts for the past 10 months. Issue 01 features Jessica Joslin, Laibach, Jarboe from the Swans, Travis Louie, Mother of London, Paul Komoda, Samuel R. Delany, Saturno Butto, and many other incredible artists, designers and writers! Fans of my photography will find my work with Scar on the inside cover, and fans of photography in general will be delighted by interviews and imagery from Eugenio Recuenco, Clayton James Cubitt, Allan Amato (Venus Wept), Taslimur and Andy Julia. And there's much, much more. Paper dolls, a lifestyle guide for supervillains... I could go on and on. All this, with almost no ads at all, for just 15 bucks.



Inspired by Sassy, Mondo 2000, Elegy, 90's-era Skin Two and Ben is Dead, this is the magazine that I've always wanted to own. The magazine I've always dreamed of making.  The magazine, as a photographer, I would've loved to get published in. The magazine I wish I'd had growing up.

It's not perfect (what pilot issue ever is?), but I'm extremely proud of it. If you love dar/alternative photography, art, fashion, culture and music, this is the magazine to own.. Especially the uncensored limited-edition version of it that we're selling exclusively through our site.

Click here to learn more about Issue 01.  And click the PayPal button below to buy! You don't need to have a PayPal Account to pay. We ship immediately, and we ship to any corner of the globe. Enjoy!

Impress your friends! Be the coolest kid on the block! Click here to get it now.

Thank you so much for everyone's help with the Adobe InDesign question I posted some time ago. Your expertise helped me complete the project, and I'm very grateful!

So, I'm posting to ask if anyone in LA needs a job, or knows someone who needs a job, that deals with Flash. The situation is like this: I'm looking to move to my company's London office from LA. They're ready for me in London, but I can't make the transition until someone here comes to replace me.

You need to be good at Flash, and you need to be good with people. That's pretty much it. It's a client-facing role, somewhere between sales and tech support. All with Flash.

It's a great job. I love it. If anyone wants to take it over here in LA, email me! mint@sandwich.net.

Graphic designers! Can you help me with some burning Adobe InDesign questions? And please speak up, even if other designers have already done so - I've heard both answers to some of these and I guess I just want to hear as much input as possible.

1. You have an InDesign project that was done on a Mac. You want to open it on a PC. Assuming that you have all the correct fonts installed on a PC, would you still run into font issues? I know that if you open a Flash file that was made on a Mac on a PC, you run into baseline shift issues with the fonts. Does this happen with InDesign as well?

2. Assuming there are some problems like the above... if you open an Mac-originated InDesign project on a PC strictly to make alterations to the text, and then transport it back to a Mac, will it export properly (into a PDF) on a Mac? In other words - if I want to use PC InDesign strictly for spelling/grammar corrections of a Mac-originated document, will it come back to the Mac all warped?

3. Let's say you have large images and you want to resize them to make them smaller for a layout in InDesign. Is it OK to use InDesign to resize the image, or must it be resized inside Photoshop and then imported into InDesign?

Whoever takes the time to answer these questions: thank you so, so much. I am a complete InDesign newbie. Someone made an InDesign file on a Mac, and I need to edit the text copy on my PC. If anyone has any insight into this process... please help!

For everyone who was completely disinterested in the above, I have also posted a picture. :)

Concept/Art Direction: Mil Von / Mother of London
Makeup: Melanie Manson
Prosthetics: Jenn Rose
Hair: Holly Jones
Model: Pia Kaamos

This image is part of an editorial COILHOUSE, the magazine of alternative art and culture that's been my focus for the past half-year along with Zoetica Ebb, Meredith Yayanos and Mildred Von. The theme of this image and others from the series (which will be published in the upcoming magazine) is artistic body piercing. The concept is by Mil, and we've been talking about shooting this picture for a year now.

We've been posting a lot about photography and alt fashion at the Coilhouse blog, so I strongly suggest readers of my LJ subscribe to the Coilhouse RSS Feed or Friend Coilhouse on LJ so that you don't miss a thing. Thank you to everyone who already supports Coilhouse by reaidng, commenting or sending us links.

The amazing team on this:

Art Direction: Mil Von / Mother of London
Makeup: Melanie Manson
Prosthetics: Jenn Rose
Hair: Holly Jones
Model: Scar13

Guys, I have a huge announcement to make! My friends and I are launching a new magazine. I think all of you will enjoy it. Here is the information. Click the picture below to go to the site!



COILHOUSE is new magazine that covers dark/alternative culture.

COILHOUSE covers art, fashion, literature, film and technology as it relates to underground scenes.

COILHOUSE welcomes submissions.

Our aim is to inform, inspire, infect. The project is a joint effort between myself, artist Zoetica Ebb and musician Meredith Yayanos. We will also have guest writers, and we welcome comments and submissions! We're don't yet have a release date for Issue 1, but it will be soon, and you will know about it. To tide you over in the meantime, blog posts will be a-plenty!

In case you're wondering if this project will replace my photography, fear not: I love photography and will continue to take pictures. I view COILHOUSE as a journalistic multimedia extension of what's always been my primary photographic aim: an exploration of what I find beautiful about alt culture, and an insight into the tranformative power that creativity can have over an individual.  I hope that you have enjoyed these themes in my own work, and that you will now find them in this new project as well.

Please visit COILHOUSE and get involved! If you like it, SPREAD THE WORD! Feel free to re-post the flyer above, or the one found in Zoetica's journal.

COILHOUSE can also be found on the following places on the web:

COILHOUSE on MySpace
COILHOUSE Flickr Stream - sometimes contains "bonus images" relating to various posts
COILHOUSE LiveJournal RSS Feed (thanks, Kristin!)

Many of you have seen the picture above because it's made its rounds on the journals of my friends, but I thought I'd post it too because I realy like it.

The model is lumivalkoinen
The designer is _yungfuktoi_
The hair is Holly Jones
The makeup is Nelly Recchia
The photographer is me, Nadya Lev

How lucky I am to collaborate with everyone above. It was one of those rare shoots when everybody was on exactly the same page with what kind of mood we wanted to create... it's inspired by Blade Runner and aristocracy. Lumi's friend auraphage even came up with an awesome title for it: "Replicant Model Type: Tiger Lily".

And because I am in an extra-chatty mood this afternnoon, I am going to ask my LJ friends some questions! I have 700+ friends here on LJ now and I'd like to see who's out there.

1. Who here is a fan of Haujobb and other Daniel Myer projects such as Cleen? When I was younger all his music sounded boring to me compared to Nitzer Ebb/242/VNV/late-90s ooontz ooontz, but now I find a lot of subtlety in his music that makes me feel things that no other industrial music makes me feel. Does anyone else know what I am talking about? This feelings seem to be enhanced by knowing William Gibson's books - anyone else feel that connection?

2. Has anyone here ever produced an old-skool 'zine using rubber cement, scissors and a Xerox machine? Who remembers Factsheet Five, Rollerderby, Ben is Dead?  Who mourned the demise of Sassy?

3. What blogs do you read? I only started reading blogs in the past year.  Here are the blogs I follow every day:  BoingBoing,  Valleywag,  Brass Goggles, Warren Ellis. Sometimes I check in with Crooks and Liars and Paleo-Future. What's on your reading list?  

Latex blinders and dress with transparent lace-print back: Atsuko Kudo
Makeup and hair: Shelly Manser-Cavanagh
Model: Joy the_killjoy, owner of fashion/design comapny Kill Betty Inc.
Photograph: Nadya Lev

Oftentimes, I hear girls who are not into latex say, "the only latex I'd ever wear is Atsuko Kudo." And it's true; their clothing breaks through the glass ceiling of the fetish world, into high fashion. It's the texture, the cuts, the seams, the precision, and the originality of design that make it so. To put it another way: even my parents like pictures with Atsuko Kudo fashion, and they hate most latex and much prefer it when I shoot lace and absinthe bottles, bless them. My collaboration with Atsuko Kudo began two years ago, and also featured Joy as one of the star models. There are three pictures of Joy from our first Atsuko shoot on my website, here, here and here. In light of our past work, Atsuko Kudo was so impressed with Joy's style and look that they flew her to London just for the shoot! We shot at the Big White Space in London this past December, with equipment borrowed from the fantastic Lily (who heroically woke up early in the morning of her birthday to replace a sync cord that had gone bad). There were tons of new outfits by Atsuko Kudo; in time, the rest of the images will surface.

li

Milady De Winter
Model, makeup, hair: Mildred Von
Gloves, neckpiece: Mother of London/Yungfuktoi (Mildred's fashion company)
Photo: Nadya Lev

For the longest time when I came to LA, I could not get my photo on. I had to start from scratch - rent a new studio, buy all new equipment, get all set up. When I finally got into the studio, I discovered to my horror that I had basically forgotten how to take pictures, because I was so out of practice. It was devastating. But Mildred patiently stood by while I got up to speed, and helped me with test shoots with no expectations of end results and encouraged me when I was ready to drop the whole thing. That really meant a lot to me. And, slowly but surely, I felt like I knew what I was doing again. Here is the fruit of our labor. Here's to many more great collaborations together!

There is another shot from this series on Mildred's LJ. Or there will be, when she gets around to posting it! :P