For my San Francisco treats:  this Sunday, November 6th, an event celebrating the collaboration of tattooist Idexa Stern and photographer Aurora Meneghello will take place at Idexa's Black & Blue Tattoo, 381 Guerrero at 16th, from 6-9PM. More details on Facebook.

Aurora's beautiful portraits of Idexa's tattoo clients are featured in the hardcover I edited for Abrams Books, "Tattoo World," which will be available for purchase as well as prints of the images. A number of those portraits will be on display at the event. Here's some background on their collaboration:

Idexa and Aurora shared a common vision for this project and together decided to approach Idexa's tattoos in a different way than traditional tattoo photography. Idexa specifically asked Aurora to work on this project because of her love of the natural landscape and her experience photographing people. Aurora brings a different aesthetics to the genre, one that captures Idexa's original style which is rooted in the body of her clients. Idexa and Aurora share a love of collaboration and community and brought their values to this common project.

Idexa's work is inspired by shapes and forms found in urban and natural spaces. Just as tattoos become part of a person's body, so people are part of our environment. These photographs were taken outside, on Bernal Hill in San Francisco and At Helen Putnam Park in Petaluma, to free the artists from the constrains of traditional studio photography. The tattoos were given light and breath to shine on the skin.

Read more about it and see more photos on Aurora's blog.