Model Connections: How to Recruit Nude Models, Direct Photo Shoots, and Build Working Relationships About the Author A K Nicholas is an art photographer from the United States who specializes in figurative imagery. A diverse background and traditional art education prompted him to develop a unorthodox aesthetic that blends sensual imagery with a painterly style of manipulated colors. He was introduced to art through museum visits and other cultural experiences in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. Growing up the Middle East, he saw how women's bodies were hidden from public view. In stark contrast, Europeans mostly lacked prudishness. Compare those to the US, where we have a bifurcated culture: half of us celebrate our beauty while the other half shuns it. He did not become interested in art until high school; taking a surrealism art history class, he realized he could explore art that interested him and began learning painting. His initial training with the nude was figure drawing while studying art in college. His first nude shoot was a complete surprise to him when a classmate in college assumed that his invitation to model meant for her to be nude. Although trained in drawing and painting, photography became his concentration by the conclusion of his art degree. Following art school, he put in his dues clerking and staffing the darkroom of a camera store. In the decades following his first shoot, he has photographed hundreds of nude models for pictorial books, limited edition prints, and his instructional books. In recent years he has dedicated himself full time to being an artist. He collaborates with models to create alternate realities, on what he calls "a journey with no known destination." With his passion for sharing knowledge, he writes to help you learn from his experience, including how to avoid some common mistakes and to encourage your creativity