Category Archives: Portraits

After a too-long “pretty girl photography” drought, I have been fortunate to work with a few absolutely lovely non-model subjects.

My affinity for tattooed girls is deep seated and became more prevalent with my involvement with the Atlanta Roller Girls roller derby team. Where I used to think that models with a lot of ink were undesirable as photographic subjects, I now look for and prefer them to the blank skin canvases of most of the other pretty girl models I see.

For me, girls with tattoos just seem prettier and more attractive than those without. I know this preference isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. If all photographers preferred girls with tattoos then they wouldn’t be special.

A girl I have photographed a number of times, Jennifer Jordan, suggested that I might like working with a friend of hers, Tara Villavalzo. So Tara and I made contact, had a great shoot, and by the next day I had connected with two more of Tara’s tattooed girl friends – one of which I have shot with already and one more coming up soon! On top of that, I have been friended on Facebook by a half-dozen more tattooed non-model girls who look like they’d be fun and interesting subjects to shoot.

So forget those “models”, and give me women with lots of ink!