Black Glamour!

I really enjoyed shooting this model. She hails from Ghana and I absolutely love her face. I took a lot of pictures of her so that I can use them for paintings.

When I was doing her makeup and styling her, I had glamour in mind. Hopefully, I achieved that!















Check out some of my paintings on my website and some more photography here.

-Tamara Natalie Madden

Africa Revisited

The model, Sankan, was born in Liberia. Africa runs through her veins, so I found the perfect location that would transform her into her true self, an African Goddess.



As a painter first, my goal when working with models, is to paint a picture that tells a story. My ultimate goal is to take the model and viewer to another place.












You can find some of my paintings on my website and some more photography here.

-Tamara Natalie Madden

Bintou courtesy of Dallas J. Logan

These are captures of Bintou, a model of Senegalese descent from Brooklyn. Dallas J. Logan was the photography of the striking images. He's worked with a DSLR for about 2 1/2 years and in that short time he's done magazine editorials, two clothing line campaigns, two skin care campaigns and an underwear line... He "now teach others the little bit I know."

In those two years I guess he has learned the technical aspects of photography but the creative artistry portrayed in his works belies that relatively short period of study. And his vision is clear in both his works and his words. We are fortunate to share some of his works in the Garden.

Get to know the works and words of Dallas here and here.

the works of alain paris...

I have been a huge admirer of Alain's images for 15 years and I know of several photographers and artists who share my sentiment. The images of his that I love are in his Black Mirages body of work that he shot in Africa. I find his captures to be inspiring and his collages to be, especially, provocative. I've included a few of his collages here, but feel free to check out the rest of his works here and here!



The following are paraphrased excerpts from his bio...

He is not a photographer but, as he is pleased to say, he goes in for photography. For he combines the technique of the professional with the original joy of the dilettante. In the proper meaning of the term: Italian word, present participle of "dilletaro", "delight", hence "the one who practise an art for love". For the pleasure of the photographic art or rather of the "photografrica" art. Because Alain Paris unceasingly puts this continent in images.



What he shows us of Africa is truly unique. In full modesty, and very subjectively, he attempts to reveal to us its very beauty. That of its women, of whom he shows the stare, the skin, the hands, the muscles...

Yes, Alain's Africa, is unique. It is woman, mother or mistress, naked, strange and sensual. With Black Mirages, he gives us to see the most beautiful and most evident of what Africa undoubtly has, but that which no one can describe. A stomach. The fertile one of a mother or the stretched skin of a dancer? Hands. The ones of an Ashanti princess of Ghana or of a Diola countrygirl of Casamance? The nape of a neck. The one of an amazon warrior of Congo or of a parisian model? Suppleness of bodies, frankness of a stare, raw purity of Africa to which these "Black Mirages" send us back.




True lover of a female Africa that he locked in his darkroom, he invites us to only see her beauty and campaigns, in his own way, and better than others maybe, for her survival.