 |
"(Porn Valley Observed is) the smartest and funniest coverage of the adult industry you will read." - About.com |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Monday, July 31, 2006
At home with April Flores and Carlos Batts
 "It's never work to take her picture," said photographer Carlos Batts of wife and Alter Ego star April Flores. "Shooting her relaxes me."It's about 10,000 degrees in Hollywood, and just under that at their place south of Franklin. They're breaking the rules by letting the dog on the bed for a picture. Batts, born in Baltimore, started shooting stills for Hustler when he moved west. He is one of the few people I know who work in the adult industry for whom that work is a part-time job. "Carlos Batts" is also his real name, and his other work has appeared in print, in frames, and online all over the world. And that is where the problem lies. It's one of those good problems that doesn't involve someone losing a kidney or the rent going unpaid. Is what Carlos Batts and April ("Fatty D") Flores do "porn"? A little about April and Alter Ego. Flores is a voluptuous Latina raised in West Covina. She was always comfortable in front of a camera but didn't pose nude until Batts and she hit it off after meeting at a gallery opening in Echo Park in 2000. "Her skin radiates light," Batts said. "I thought 'I'm a photographer, I'd like to take your picture' was a pickup line," Flores said, "but I was open to it. "I thought he gave me the 'I wanna fuck you' look. Turns out he gave me the 'I wanna photograph you' look." ("They're similar," I said.) They discovered that she worked at the coffeeshop around the corner from his apartment. "We met in June and I was pretty much living here by September," she said. They began shooting what would eventually become Alter Ego, a series of vignettes featuring Flores in solo scenes, in wigs and different outfits, with friends, with a pre-op (now post-op) male to female transsexual (there is no dialogue in the movie, but when EK injects Caverjet into his penis he looks off-camera to indicate "it's not as painful as it looks"), and having some snacks. I assumed Flores was someone with no body image problem at all, but it wasn't that simple. "I would lose a lot of weight and not be happy," she said. "The decisions to be happy came slowly."  Batts' first book of photography, "Wild Skin" (Edition Reuss, Munich) contained a note from his publisher. "His pictures are direct, wild, erotic and do not seek to flatter," it read. "His models are full of curves and corners."Batts cuts no corners in presenting playful and loving images of his wife. Of their first shoot, Flores said, "He said 'I want to put you in a bikini.' Now I'm a big juicy woman. I had a half a second of 'What?' and then I jumped into it. I thought of myself as a bowl of fruit or a piece of clay." "She's very considerate," Batts said. "Before we go out, she asks me if I want her to smell like marshmallows or cherries." Can what you do when you're in love be porn? Is it porn when there's commerce involved? Each scene of Alter Ego is lovingly framed, lit, scored, and constructed, but there are women fucking each other with dildos in it. Sure it's porn, but that doesn't mean it's soulless. Michael Ninn could have made Alter Ego, or Andrew Blake, but it would have seemed cold. (What would Batts have done with Catherine?) The question is how to market a series of what appears to be erotic wedding presents Batts and Flores gave to each other. Currently, Alter Ego is for sale on Flores' site. Batts, having worked in the porn business, is adamant that what they're doing not be lumped in with traditional porn fare. "Every artist should handle sex, and violence, and humor," Batts said, describing the artist's journey like a medical resident's rotation. "People are doing radical things, but the way we look at art is reductive. We've got iPods but we're still living in 1946." Flores got to work with Belladonna recently. She's not worried about the categorization so much, though Batts is very concerned about how they are not to be perceived.  "I'm not 'The Black Photographer' and she's not 'The BBW'," Batts said (He had earlier mentioned that BBW-lovers get upset when women are falsely labeled as BBWs. "She needs to put on 50 more pounds," he explained)."We just hope our passion for life inspires people." See also: April Flores, Carlos Batts ¶ Monday, July 31, 2006  
Comments
:
This is a brilliant story! I'm impressed, and I'm usually impressed with your work, so it's doubly so with this piece. LadyB
#
posted by
:
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
His wife is beautiful, but do not be fooled, Carlos Batts is the worse artist I've ever come across. His photography is fine - but I just watched American Gothic and his film work and poetry is atrocious. Do not waste your money on ANYTHING this man sells.
Post a Comment
Links to this post : << Home |
July 2002 December 2002 January 2003 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement This Website fully complies with 18 U.S.C. 2256 and 2257 and the regulations promulgated thereunder. The owners and operators of this Website are secondary producers and are not the primary producer (as defined in 18 U.S.C. 2257) of any of the visual content contained in this Website. All models, actors, actresses and other persons that appear in any visual depiction of actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct appearing or otherwise contained in this Website were over the age of eighteen years at the time of the creation of such depictions. All other pictures, graphics, videos or other visual media displayed on this Website are exempt from the provision of 18 U.S.C. 2257 (a) through (c) and 28 C.F.R. 75 because the pictures, graphics, videos or other visual media: (1) do not consist of depictions of sexually explicit conduct, but are merely depictions of non-sexually explicit nudity, (2) contains only visual depictions of actual sexually explicit conduct made before July 3, 1995, or is produced, manufactured, published, duplicated, reproduced, or reissued before July 3, 1995; (3) contains only visual depictions of simulated sexually explicit conduct; (4) contains some combination of visual depictions described in (2) and (3) above; (5) have been certified by its primary producer to the operators of this Website (as secondary producers) to satisfy the standards under (2) through (4) above. |
