ANDY KING

I'm closing this blog for the time being. I feel I cannot be personal when there a lot of people who I know that read it, especially those whose relationship with me is on a professional basis. I don't like filtering what I say. It becomes boring, blank and quiet. It also means I am not interested in updating because it's not personal, it lacks truth. It is very agitating that the only people who can be "loud" (as in, not losing out on it) are either the famous because "they've already made it to the top" and "all publicity is good publicity" (a line that some forget doesn't really apply to those who are just starting out. I mean if the average Joe writes about overdosing on coke, it's "that lazy-ass Joe who has no admirable quality you can think of overdosing on coke writing about it because he wants to be cool and get attention") and social outcasts because "they have nothing to loose". People judge those who they admire and tear to shreds everyone else.

I want to be radical, nonsensical, random, cliche, pretentious (what's wrong with being pretentious anyway? It's roll playing, it's just another form of escapism) and write opinions that I will change the next day (why do we feel so defeated to admit we changed our opinion and feel the need to stick to it out of principle?). I want to post photos of myself with as much or as little clothes as I want (because photos speak moods so much more clearly than words) without fearing that people I know will assume it's because I think I am just that hot. It's really because I am egocentric. As are you and everyone else. We have to be to survive. Some days are best documented with a self-portrait, there is no beauty involved. And documentation is essential. People who scoff at people with blogs or diaries should shut up and start writing. You develop yourself as an individual by reflecting on the past. And the only way you know a change within you has occured, any change, is by going back and looking at an entry from a few years ago. If it makes you cringe, bite your lip or laugh, then you know that change has taken place.

I want to be personal, excruciatingly personal.

Why have a blog then? Why not keep a diary then?

Because it is not the same. Spilling the deepest secrets to a stranger on the train is just so much more relieving than spilling it on a dry piece of paper. The best public is the public you will never meet again.

For those of you who have commented and emailed me: it makes me smile that my work is appreciated. I regularly update these portfolios:

http://www.modelmayhem.com/andyking  (fashion photography)
http://www.kingqstudio.deviantart.com   (both illustration + fashion photography)
http://www.kingqstudio.com  (website)

I will open a new blog, but it will be one open to those who I genuinely do not know.

Had a photoshoot last night that lasted until 5am! It was so worth it, even when I woke up this morning with sore limbs from waving my camera about for 6 hours (I don't believe in tripods... I AM THE TRIPOD). I can't wait to post the results this week!



Have an exam tomorrow and after hardly any sleep last night, no sleep coming up this night and another photoshoot coming up tomorrow, I suddenly realize that I'm TOO OLD FOR THIS! I used to go about with two hours of sleep each night for weeks when I was sixteen but now... at twenty... I can't do it any more! I need my ELEVEN HOURS (that's the perfect amount).

Model: Chalie Keenan
Styling: Ali Mirzai
Photogrpahy: Andy King

I have also signed up for a Friday course at Edinburgh College of Art, though it's more of a getogether of artists who want to paint together. After class I was picked up by a model (an established rugby player/coach) and we headed off to my studio in Glasgow to do some fitness shoots. It was fantastic, we took more than 900 photos and now I'm sitting here and chewing my knuckles off. The hardest part for me is deciding which photo to go for. It drives me crazy, especially if there are more than 40 potential 'finals'. I'm chainsmoking Russian black tobacco which are just painful to smoke because I don't have the time to go and get some Pall Malls, and feeling my sanity evaporate. WHICH.ONE.IS.THE.BEST.PHOTO.FUCK.DAMN.BOLLOCKS.

Some more photos:



Model: Tehminah Malik

I have my own photo studio. Purchased it a few weeks ago. It feels like I've just purchased my own little world.


Model: Michal Czaplinski

Model: Sam
Photography: Andy

                                                      a very small illustration in watercolour and ink which I enlarged in PS..
                                                                                    and I'm off to Cyprus for two weeks!

I was painting some still life (as practice, still life + landscapes are not only boring and but take up too much museum space, yuk. people = fun, landscapes = fun for 10mins and never on photos/paintings) and decided to take some photos. Turned out it was a good idea as I left Moscow before I had finished the painting so now I can print the photos out and use them as reference next year and spare the hunt for "that denty pomegranate and s-shaped pear".