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It's been several weeks since Chelsea was in the studio and new pictures from the session will surface for a while. This one was without the mermaid tail; just Chelsea and her red hair in the tub.
With days in the 80s now, it shouldn't be long before the tub and mermaid can go underwater.
I ran across this Honeymoon cover I did with French actress Fiona Gelin on Moorea, French Polynesia some years back. I lost track of her, probably because my French is poor and her English wasn't conversational.
The pictures from my Fiona sessions have inspired artist friends to paint her so she lives on the walls here in both literal and abstract forms.
I found Man Ray's grave in Paris' Cimetiere de Montparnasse in September and took a few pictures of the headstones. The Montparnesse Cemetery also contains the remains of rock star Jim Morrison and other notables.
Then, a few weeks ago, reading The Paris Wife, a novel by Paula McLain about the life of Ernest Hemingway, the story talks about Hemingway and his wife hanging around the Montparnasse area of Paris with artists including Man Ray and his wife.
Small world.
To avoid a week's steaming back to Mahe from Aldabra, the President of the Seychelles loaned us his Citation jet (note the tail number, SY001). There was an atoll near Aldabra with a runway, but no fuel source and the jet didn't have fuel capacity for a roundtrip.
So, we carried 55 gallon drums of jet fuel on Fantasea II, offloaded them on the atoll and, using a hand-cranked pump, transferred the fuel to the jet.
Then, three of us at a time with our dive gear and cameras in passenger seats, flew back to Mahe.
We ineloquently refer to the expensive camera systems as a "camera pile." I'm looking at the pile and with raised arms shouting "Mine.... All mine!" I wasn't deranged; just joking.
In fact, most of them (23 cases worth) belonged to David Doubilet or National Geographic Magazine.
This photo was taken some years ago on an expedition to the Aldabra Atoll. I flew Norfolk-Cincinatti-London Gatwick-Mahe, Seychelles and boarded Howard Rosenstein's Fantasea II liveaboard dive vessel. We steamed 8 days to Aldabra, along the way exploring unspoiled underwater environments, islands and atolls: Mahe, Alphonse, Bijouter, Cosmoledo and Astove. Once at Aldabra, in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar off the coast of Africa, we explored and photographed the surrounding marine environment, all around the interior of the volcanic island caldera and spent time with some of the 100,000 giant tortoise living on the protected atoll.
Back row (l-r) is Robin Kewell (Cornwall, England), me, Patrick Debuie (Paris, France), Al Hornsby (CA), Dan Harwood (CA), Gail Harwood, John Boyle (Cornwall, England). Front row (l-r) Howard Rosenstein (Israel), Karine Debuie (Paris), David Doubilet (NY), Gary Bell (AUS), Meri Bell (AUS) and Lionel Pozzoli (Paris, France). Not pictured is Asher Gaul (Israel). The Bells and Gaul were assisting Doubilet.