Photography By Craig Hamrick




	When I was about 10, my parents put the first camera in my hands -- and my first subjects were my cats, Chester and Puffy. Nearly thirty years later, it's come full circle: I've photographed hundreds of interesting people and dozens of exotic places, but our little guys, Dusty and Buster, are currently my most frequent models. For several years, I had my own photo studio in Manhattan. Currently I'm battling colon cancer (read more about that), so I'm not available for commercial assignments. However, you can check out the galleries below for some of my favorite shots, and as time (and energy) permits, I'll be adding more this summer. -- Craig, June 2005


	Portraits -- Gallery One Portraits and behind-the-scenes candids I've shot of actors and writers, including Craig Lucas, Margaret Cho, and Brini Maxwell. Besides male nudes (see below), my specialty is entertainment-related subjects, like stage and movie stills, and artist portraits.

	Body Photography One day my friend Elliott said, "What would you do if you could get paid to do anything in the whole world?" I thought for a moment and said, "Look at sexy naked men all day." Well...there's a way to get paid for that: become a portrait photographer, specializing in male nudes. So that's exactly what I did. I started in my dining room, shooting my then-boyfriend in the buff. And eventually I opened my own studio in Tribeca. My battle with cancer -- or more specifically, the annoying side-effects of chemotherapy -- have slowed things down, and I was forced to close the studio in 2004. But here are some of my favorite male nudes -- from my red dining room days to my "studio period."

	Portraits -- Gallery Two More semi-nude portraits.

	New York The city I love.

	Kansas I grew up in a little town called Coffeyville, Kansas. I don't get back there very often, but when I do, my camera is always close at hand. This gallery contains images of an abandoned farmhouse plus photos of the Kansas countryside.

	New Gallery A random selection -- including some post-9/11 shots, and images of my second favorite city, Dublin.

	Brazil I spent part of the winter of '03 in a small village in Brazil, and of course shot hundreds of photos. Here's another gallery, of kids playing there.

	Buster & Dusty My boyfriend Joe and I are happy parents of two of the wackiest cats in the world.

	Dublin If I had to pick another city to live in, my first choice (after NYC) would be Dublin. It's difficult to define exactly why, but I love the mixture of old-world and modern architecture -- plus as a pop culture historian (a.k.a., a professional couch potato/TV, theater, and movie fanatic) I really like the city's mixture of British and American media. Joe and I have traveled there several times, and are returning this summer ('05). One of these days, I'll try to add some more photos -- I've taken hundreds there.

	The Rookery I first visited actor Louis' Edmonds' Long Island estate, which he dubbed the Rookery, in 1994, just a few weeks after moving to New York. I was there to interview Louis, one of the stars of Dark Shadows and All My Children, for a magazine article. Over time, Louis became one of my closest friends, part of my ever-expanding, self-made New York family, as that article grew into his biography, Big Lou. (Read more about that book.) I moved around a lot during my first several years in NYC -- living in various precarious sub-sub-subleased apartments and roommate situations. But through that time, the Rookery (and Louis' father-like friendship) provided some much-needed stability. My final visit there was for Louis' funeral in 2001, after he died of complications related to his long, brave battle with the devastating effects of throat cancer. I had been a professional journalist for more than a decade when I met Louis, but I'd really only dabbled at photography. His encouragement -- and the gorgeous setting at the Rookery -- gently pushed me to begin exploring photography as an art. Here are some of my favorite images captured at the Rookery.