French photographer Michel Charles born, lives and works in Marseilles. His work plays around erotica and Mediterranean subjects often manipulating the lighting of his shots. Using digital alterations to the photographs he keeps his subject suggestive in an erotic fashion.

I have come across many websites that act as a portal for his work. I invite you to visit them, as some unique work can be found on all of them. Either due to the time they were posted or whether they were made available only at that time some shots appear on some sites and not others.

His work is sexually inspiring and so far as I’ve seen, he only uses female subjects. If you know of any other links to his work, please share in the comments. As I researched him on the net, I also discovered his personal blogger spot. If you speak a little french, you’ll have a good time reading his bio and blog header. Look no further…This gentleman only photographs nude women!

The blog itself has a large amount of work you may flip through to get a better idea of his scope. The galleries I’m sure offer the most sought after and popular pieces. I find it’s nice to be able to go through more of a port-folio.

By going through his blog I also discovered his past time. It would appear our photographer friend indulges himself in cartooning under the name Phileas. Political cartooning can be displayed on a second blog he hosts through blogger and by doing searches on Phileas, you’ll find plenty more.

Michel Charles’ landscape photos are probably best seen on his third blog, but can also be found on his main gallery.

Will I be doing a series of banner for my blog to promote his work? Most likely! I haven’t gone through enough and all of his available work yet, but I’m certainly enjoying the process.

This is the main link to his gallery:

http://www.phileas.com/mc/

On a more personal level:

http://www.lcnum.com/mcharles/

http://photo.box.sk/autor.php3?id=826

http://mcha.free.fr/index.html

Purchasing his work appears to be rather simple through his main gallery.

The new banners haven’t drawn that much attention, however I’ve found some satisfaction in tweaking Wordpress’ skin to make it happen.  My ultimate objective is to rotate or load a new one every time the user refresheses the page.  I’ve found the add on to achieve it, but that add on, is not so easily adapted to the skin I’m using.  I sought help on the Wordpress.org help forum, but without a reply thus far.

Enough of that, the other fun side of it has been making the banners and choosing the art work for it.  As I am going into a new run, I thought I’d add a review to the artists I’ll be featuring.

Michael Mobius - Pinup artist.  You can get many profiles on him at different websites authorized to resell his artwork.  Most of these, also profile the artists.  As for Michael Mobius, born in 1968 in East Germany was influenced in earlier work by Sorayama.  As you go through the above link, you’ll find more recent projects, for example, one with Playboy.  Please visit the website for more information.

Gil Elvgren - Also Pinup artist.  American, 1914 to 1980.  As you look at his work, you may just find it all too familiar as he was one of the artist for Coca-Cola for over 25 years.  A large biography can be found here.  His work not as risqué as other pinup artists, you can’t help but thinking "classic" as you view his work.  Some of you may also remember a small dog pulling down a little girl’s bathing suit, the painting helped to establish Joyce Ballantyne’s reputation while making Coppertone one of the best-known products in the world.  She was one of Gil Elvgren’s students.  You can feel his touch as you look at the style.

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