AJ Escobar by Paul Mariano

'Small town dairy boy here living the city life!'
AJ Escobar

I have been wanting to feature more of the work of San Francisco photographer Paul Mariano for awhile now. I have featured a couple his images previously on FH, a pic of the day, and a shot in my profile of model Gerrad Bohl, but never a full feature. During my break from daily posting I went back to my 'wish list', my desktop folder containing shots from photographers whose work I hoped to feature at some point in the future.

When I was searching Paul's work, up came a shot of 24 year old model AJ Escobar and I saw instantly which model Paul had shot I wanted to feature. The shot I saw (which I used as pic of the day) was a Model Mayhem pic of the day and I love AJ's look and images, especially his emotive face and beautiful soulful eyes.

Paul Mariano was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the Bay Area in 1992. Although it was clearly his images with models which led me to his images, Paul work goes beautifully beyond the bounds of the human form. A self described world traveler, Paul has an incredible selection of work chronicling his voyages around the globe including his most recent collection featuring his images from his time in Guatemala.

Paul brings the same visual sensibility he uses when shooting landscapes and locations to his work with his human subjects. A quiet, almost peaceful focus on beauty, not loud or flashy but yet a distinct vision of capturing his subjects within their surroundings. As is evident in his work with AJ, there is a beautiful assimilation between model and setting, allowing his subjects to stand out yet look naturally apart of their environment.

Paul says working with AJ was wonderful the two have now shot twice together, creating a distinctly different feel and look in each of the two sets of images.

'Working with Paul was a very pleasant experience, so pleasant we shot twice in a matter of months with very busy schedules. There was an awesome chemistry between us allowing each other to feed off one another's creativity to produce images that pleased us both. I was attracted to his very natural and neutral style really bringing out the true beauty of the photograph without all the gimmicks and airbrushing. I'd do it again in an instant.'
AJ Escobar