Behind The Naked Photos: An Interview With Apnea

Sure, you've spent years ogling the lovely and amazing Apnea—but do you know anything about the girl behind the photos? Our friends at Yuhmm reached out to the alt goddess and got her story. Their interview below.

Shitty vodka mixed with cheap Sav-n-Go orange juice may be a cheap Friday night buzz. However, we're thankful for the concoction because it may have very well kicked off the illustrious modeling career of the enchanting Apnea. Always one to push the creative envelope, the world-renown alt & fetish model continues to blossom both personally and professionally. We catch up the alluring Apnea as she tells it like it is - honest and sincere. We'll drink to that - even if it's shitty vodka and cheap oj.

Tell us how you got your start in fetish/alt/goth modeling.

Parts of the beginning are really foggy because it started out as me and my ex, both unemployed and drinking a lot, and filling time between drinking these disgusting 48oz cups of shitty vodka mixed with the cheapest orange juice at the Sav-n-Go, to take pictures of each other or whatever it was we did. Like I said, the beginning is foggy. I remember he got into cam-whoring because his ex was doing it and I was there, drunk, holding pineapples or stuffed animals and posting photos on his live journal. I was in a bad place, my health was horrible, severely depressed and finding every possible distraction, bordering on academic probation, lost my grant money so wasn't even considering going back to school. No job, no car… just being a horrible mess of a person.

Anyways, the photos got more intense, and slowly I would let him post more pictures of me occasionally screaming at him and telling him he was horrible for letting people see that much of my stomach. And then one day, poof… BOOBS in my photos. Awesome response. Like, a really overwhelming response to the topless photos of me. I remember the first naked photo put up of myself online, I just kept hitting the refresh button and new comments kept coming up. I had seriously just turned 18, like it must have just been weeks after my birthday that this was going on. Then, from that I started getting job offers. At the same time, I was cleaning up my act and working at this awful sandwich shop that I had to walk to everyday or take the bus because I didn't have a car. I lived in a horrible apartment and my life was just me starting over and trying to fix what I had destroyed from lots of bad mistakes. After I started being responsible again and living a pretty boring existence, I used modeling as my hobby and something fun to do. I always loved putting on makeup, so now I had a reason to put it on and learn how to do it better. I loved dressing up, so now I was able to do it. It was all just fun and nobody was taking me seriously as a model.

In 2004, I started working at a salon as the receptionist and had enough money eventually to move into a nicer place and finally buy a car and then, I really started getting motivated about being the biggest I could get. When I was 19, I got my first three magazine covers and was being printed like crazy by some of my favorite magazines. I went totally nuts on my fitness and lost 35 pounds from the time I began modeling to where I was. I spent every dollar I had on clothes to shoot in and to get to other countries and attend events, and feels like I spent every free minute on a computer. I'm serious about spending every dollar on modeling. I almost got stranded in London with no cash once and my bank account was overdrawn and I couldn't re-up my cell phone minutes, so I was running through the train station one morning trying to find another model I was going to a shoot with freaking out because if I missed that train I would have been stuck in Hammersmith. I did find the train though :) So, I made enough money from that job to get home safely.

As you got more and more popular as a model, I imagine you had to look at modeling more closely as a business. At what point in your career did you realize that I'm going to commit to this full-time?

I had my paysite built to launch in January 2006. I set a goal that once my paysite was matching my salary at my real job then I would quit and become a "full time" model. It didn't take very long, I had to pay off a very steep bill to my ex for building it but once he was paid off, I was able to quit in a couple of months. It affected my work in both positive and negative ways. I feel like up to that point the photos of me that were being released were very controlled and nobody saw the really bad images. And there were some pretty heinous ones from the beginning, but we were the ones in control and we were able to get them down before people could see how much we sucked at first. That's the first bad thing about becoming a full-time model and learning everything out on your own. I was taking paid jobs just because the money was good and disregarding how awful the photographer was going to make me look. So yes, there are a lot of photos of me out there now that I have a hard time looking at. I would have never taken those jobs if I weren't depending on the income. The second reason there's so many photos I don't like is because all of the content I had to shoot. I learned this new thing that I kept hearing photographers say, "This is just content." Like it's okay that 50 of the photos are going to be really bad, just as long as you have 150 new photos on your site this week. So that's the downside. The upside is obvious, I can say fuck it and go on a two month long road trip and I make a living by playing dress-up in clothes I love to wear and getting my picture taken.

My boyfriend Chase [Lisbon] has opened up my eyes to so much. When we first started talking he told me how much he loved my photos and he thought it was great to see someone in our line of work putting so much effort into their shoots. Then, I gave him a password to my website and he said, "okay cool you're a real human, this isn't like the other photos of you I saw." He was really shocked and thought it was ridiculous that sites like mine would want 150 photos of someone sitting in a chair. It's like I mentioned before, I was posting so much filler on my site just to get the numbers up, which is what everyone does, but I don't want to do that anymore. As we got to know each other, I started to back away from "industry standards" and adopted more his theory that every photo in a content set should be as close to a stand-alone photo that can be put in a portfolio as possible. So, I stopped, and now I post smaller sets and more elaborate videos that I feel like I could show any photo that I've posted in the last year and be happy about someone seeing it. I'm having pride in my work again! It's awesome.

You own and operate your site Apneatic.Com, correct?

I do. I didn't build it, but I own it and maintain it. It was a portfolio site for two years then became a paysite in January of 2006. I went through all of my photos and videos recently because I'm playing around with trying to rebuild it (like I said, playing around, I don't have the skill set to build a site like mine yet) and it was really neat to see the progression of the physical changes I've been through in the last four years. Weight loss, weight gain, black hair, blonde hair, short hair, brown hair, new tattoo, another new tattoo, photo quality getting bigger, better… sets getting better, progression of wardrobe, makeup, etc. The videos have made the most improvement. I really am looking forward to the day when I rebuild it. I feel like I've been staring at the same design too long but I'm sure this is something that a lot of webmasters go through.

Can we talk about your deliciously designed chest piece? Talk about the design and the tattoo artist behind the work.

Jon Glessner did my chest piece at Ghost Town in Ellicott City, Maryland. I really wanted a cameo for awhile and Chase gave me the idea to put the acanthus from the dollar bill behind it, so on one of our frequent trips to Baltimore Jon drew it up and worked on it for almost 7 hours one night, then we woke up and he finished the rest that morning. I thought it was a really obvious design because it's such a popular necklace but I've never seen anyone with it on his or her chest, so I feel really lucky about the whole situation. I think Jon did a great job on it; he's also the guy that tattooed the Gil Elvgren witch on my right thigh. The first night I met Jon, we were all out at a bar and he walked up to us wearing a fisherman's cap, cut off shorts, and an old-timer's seersucker jacket. After pulling out empty nips from his pockets and calling me Cleopatra, he started screaming obscenities that offended the bartender and nearly cleared the bar out. Then, holding up a $20 bill and snapping it he replied, "Don't worry, it's nothing that my friend Andrew Jackson can't take care of." That's back when I was still drinking and I got so wasted I walked into the bar across the street that I had never been to and demanded to pay my tab so I could get out of there. Then, I lost my wallet in the backseat of Chase's lawyer's car so I couldn't attempt to pay any imaginary tabs after that.

There's a good share of photos of you without tattoos on your site. Do you feel this opens you up to more commercial and mainstream work or is it just a character you like to have fun with?

I think you're referring to all of the photo sets on my site of me before I started getting tattooed more. Now that I do have more tattoos I'm hired for less of the jobs I used to get and I'm now being hired for new jobs that I didn't get before. I don't live my life to model. I like to find a balance between the two, doing what I want to do and being able to model. It's not like I'm Kate Moss and I can't go get my face tattooed because I'm Kate Moss. This isn't my whole life forever. I'd also like to add I'm not getting my face tattooed.

Is it true you're undergoing laser removal of a 3/4 sleeve? Why?

Yes it's true, a 3/4 sleeve and my armpit. I've had it lasered three times since March and I have my fourth session this month at Jinx Proof in DC. Here's what I've learned about lasering. It hurts really really bad. Emla cream works, even if you think it's not working, try using it once and then go back without using it. There's a huge difference. And the third thing I've learned is if I undergo a serious amount of pain my body's reaction is to throw up. So, the first time I get lasered at Jinx Proof, Chase was across town getting tattooed and I had to go meet up with him. Instead, I ended up stumbling across the street to a Dean and Deluca, with my mummy arm, ripped up shirt, eyeliner running down my face asking these rich old ladies if I could cut in line in the bathroom because I was having a bad reaction with my medicine, ended up getting violently ill and then nodded out behind the building until my friends came and found me and took me to go get ice cream. The ice cream made me feel better. :) You ask why I'm getting it lasered off, all I can say is look at it. I didn't get it finished because it wasn't turning into a happy ending. Plus this way now I can get it covered up with something that matches my chest and I'll have some more continuity.

You are quite the chameleon with your looks. Do you have multi-personalities?

I guess. I'm not very graceful, but I guess it looks like I am sometimes in my pictures. I can be very insecure, which might explain partially why I do what I do but again, people can't tell from my pictures. I have triggers that can bring up painful things from my past and I'll go from being sweet to insane at the drop of a hat. A lot of times it feels like there are two people inside of me battling to take control of my brain and I wish my body had the strength to take control of that whole situation. Whatever it is, chemical imbalances, (Chase calls it the battle between the body and the soul) or maybe something that can't be explained until I'm older. I'm really shy. I have horrible social anxiety. I have to stay sober because I have an addictive personality and I was a very different person when I was drinking. I can go from being hyper-sexual to thinking that there's been times that sex has ruined my life and destroyed my trust in people and I wanted to become celibate and join a monastery. I look very different in a lot of my photos because my interests span so many different things and there's never one look I have in mind for my overall body of work. Seriously, I even tried to make a plan like that last year where all of the work I would release would all be styled very similar and I would have this one look, but it doesn't stick. Sometimes I want to shoot naked outside in a cave and sometimes I want to wear all black and shoot in a dark corner. People who know me best know there's a big difference between Apnea and Amanda.

Where does your process for coming up with artistic concepts for your shoots start?

I don't come up with concepts for photos anymore. If there is one, it was the photographer's idea. These days I'm more focused on wardrobe, hair, makeup, and setting and making it all go together. None of this, "Okay, you're randomly sitting in this chair on top of a mountain and you're thinking deeply about the past and a dead lover. Now look at me like you're angry about it." Nooooooo. No more of that unless I get tricked into it and I'm too nice to stand up and walk away.

We've asked several industry professionals both behind and in front of the camera their opinion on the erotic goth/alt movement and many have expressed that they feel the scene has become stagnant. What's your take?

I felt that way about everything, not just goth/alt, but also pop, scene queens, hipsters, gangsters, movies, music, even myself. I thought the stagnation was a sign of end times. What's the point of anyone doing anything new if we're all about to die anyways? But then the more I got out of my hole where I wasn't doing anything new and I actually started doing something new, I feel like I moved into a new wavelength and started to see other people around me that were doing new things and making new projects. I don't follow the goth/alt movement anymore. I've made somewhat of an effort to detatch myself from it because I've had some horrible experiences within it and I don't want to be associated with some of the people anymore that I used to be associated with.

You are the co-owner of the erotic site FLNGS and you actually built it as well. Tell us how the project came about and its overall premise.

This was all Chase's idea. He designed it too, I did build it though with the help of some friends (this was the first site I ever built!). And he invited me to be co-owner, but even though we own it we don't have the absolute say in anything. He always checks in with the other five main photographers whenever there's a decision to be made. Chase was a photo blogger at Nerve for two years then one day he got the call that they had been bought out by the Onion and the photo bloggers were all going to lose their jobs. He immediately started planning Late Night Feelings, (FLNGS for short) as a place to pick up where Nerve left off for photo bloggers to write and post pictures and then eventually had the idea to have guest bloggers on to contribute to the blogs that Chase and the other five guys are writing. Our six main bloggers are Bob Coulter, George Pitts, Nathan Appel, Tony Stamolis, Chase Lisbon, and Merkley.

How did you choose your guest bloggers?

Right now there's just a long list of people that the group of us know or admire that we would like to have on the site. Our guest blogger this week is Autumn Sonnichsen, she was another one of the Nerve bloggers while Chase was writing for them. Her photos are amazing!

You and Chase are living "in the mountains" as you described to me. Seems like the perfect match and situation where you have an amazing photographer close by and he gets a beautiful model & artist at his disposal. How does this fuel both of your creative appetites?

Although we both work in the same industry we come from very different backgrounds in it, so us coming together has influenced both of our work and I feel like both of our work has improved since meeting each other. It's like when peanut butter met chocolate. I know peanut butter was badass and all in its sandwiches, and chocolate's like really cool, but then they came together and started making stuff like Reese's Christmas trees. But that's all in ideas and editing and helping out with each others shoots. Chase and I don't shoot very much together. He likes to use the beach analogy. If you were vacationing at the beach you would probably be in the water every day, but when you live at the beach you don't swim in the water nearly as often. Both of us mostly shoot when we're in other cities.

You and Chase have been exploring more video content. Tell us about some of your most recent projects.

He's been shooting erotic videos for nine years. It's just recently that I've been doing more video work. They're all his projects that I'm just helping him manage now. You guys should seriously ask him more about it. He's a beautiful thinker and a great writer. I couldn't do his projects justice if I tried to describe them. I'm so freaking excited to be in the ones he's cast me to be in. That's another thing I respect about him, he doesn't feel obligated to put me in all of his projects, so it really does feel exciting when he tells me he wants to be the girl for a certain movie he's making. Ask him about "20 Minutes of Girls Running in Fear." I'm not in that one but it's such an awesome idea for a movie.

You also do live performances. Describe one of your shows.

I did, but I don't anymore. My favorite live performance was in 2006 when I did a striptease behind a silhouette screen and the crowd wouldn't stop screaming, then I dressed into a panda outfit behind it and dropped the screen and I started lip syncing to a rap song. I had two dancers on stage with me that I pretended to shoot with these fake guns that had really loud poppers in them. The crowd went silent. Yikes. Sometimes I do things to amuse myself but it's not obvious enough for other people to get it, like if I wore a Hoobastank shirt I would think it's funny, right? But it's not obvious enough so people would just think I was serious. The event coordinators were ecstatic, they ran up to me really happy and said "Oh my God Mandy I loved it, they didn't get it at all." I ended up doing another performance that was more traditional afterward so everyone was happy with the evening.

Are there other mediums or innovative ideas that you're experimenting with to grow your brand?

I'm working harder to be more open about myself and not perceive my modeling person as a brand that I have to manage. I mean, I don't want bad photos of me anymore so I would like to manage that, but I feel like I censor myself so much because I'm so scared of criticism. It's one thing to read people telling me they think I'm an ugly model or there's something about this or that that's wrong with me. I mean I'm naked on the internet I'm definitely putting myself out there for criticism. But opening up on my blog has been a huge challenge. I can't tell you how many blogs I've written and erased because I felt so vulnerable after writing them. If someone says they don't like me, there's a level of separation and my feelings are less inclined to get hurt because I have this barrier, but I'm trying to let myself be totally open because I feel like I could help a lot of people if I share some of the things I've gone through. There's a lot people don't know about me and there's a ton of things that happened to me that I wish I could talk about because I feel like it could help someone if they've been through similar experiences or have ever shared the same thoughts that I struggle with.

Tell us what's ahead for you in 2010.

Front Magazine just requested pictures of me for their hottest girls of 2010, so that's awesome and intensely flattering. But other than that, there's no telling. There's been so many times in my life I wish I had cameras following me because the most insane shit happens to me and then it sparks this chain of events and things happen so fast. My life is filled with magic and I just patiently await the next awesome thing that's going to happen and hope the next bad thing isn't going to be too bad. But at least all of the bad things are learning experiences and make me a stronger person.

And your New Year's resolution is…?

I'd like to learn more about Chinese medicine. Additional photo credits: Steve Prue, Cannibalized and Corwin Prescott

Taste It:
www.apneatic.com
www.apneasblog.com

Republished from Yuhmm Magazine. Read more at Yuhmm.