AUSTIN LYNN AUSTIN

I love this clip. I would like to make an entire video for them like this. Can anyone make this happen? I’m not sure who took the photo but JahTyler on youtube shot the clip.

KOVAROVA { pronounce with long Õ }

A lot of people ask me what the name of my production company means and how to pronounce it. Kovarova is the name of the most famous European Vampire Queen. She is over 1,000 yrs old. I found her (actually she found me) in Prague about 15 years ago, in the basement labyrinth of Obecni dum. Kova is of the royal vampire Zasvorka bloodline and often hunted the neighborhoods of Vinohrady. She was the mistress of King Wenceslas IV in the 14th century. Her castle was burnt down in 1455 and she has been in exile ever since.

In the 1600s, Kova returned to her birthplace Paris, where she was a mistress to King Louis XIV. Louis kept her at Versailles for several years. At Versailles, she met the Austrian empress and fellow vampire Maria Theresa who later gave birth to Marie Antoinette. She was a mentor to Marie and stood in the shadows watching while she was executed. At the time, some said Marie was killed by guillotine because Kova had infected her. It was also rumored that Marie did not allow the consummation of her marriage to Louis XVI because the vampires did not want to infect a “dim-witted” king.

After Marie’s death, Kova fled France and found herself in the aristocratic underworld of Vienna, by invitation of Princess Isabella de Parma. It was a troubled time as Vienna was invaded by France soon after she arrived. The Austrians saw her arrival as a curse and cast her out of the city. She fled north and found herself once again in the City of Prague. She remained in Prague until the start of WWII. During the war she moved between Berlin and Geneva and lusted after the blood of the powerful and greedy. At the end of WWII, she wandered Scandinavia until 1989 and then returned to Prague when the Berlin wall fell. That is where we met in the early 1990s.

I had a studio in the lower floor of the Obecni dum. The studio was located at the front entry of a series of dark rooms and corridors that went several floors underground. There was no sunlight down there. One evening as I was leaving the studio late, I heard the voice of a woman coming from the darkness of one of the corridors. The light from an old tungsten bulb hanging above the hall began to dull and brighten. I could see her faint image in the darkness and I walked toward her. I thought she was lost or was someone that worked in the building. She said hello in Czech, “ahoj.” I said “hello” in English and she began to speak English fluently. She was/is or I should say, looks like, she is 30 yrs old and is strikingly beautiful. She is nothing like the murderous, zombielike types portrayed in movies. She told me that we knew each other and I believed her. I invited her to join me in the USA. Kova is currently in New York City where she has rebuilt her network and has reunited with several other European vampires. I am the only one allowed to know where she lives.

The above illustration by Manuel Rebollo is the closest image I can find that represents how she looks. It’s impossible to take a picture of her. Perhaps Manuel has seen her before.

Obecni dum, where we met and where her castle stood from 1307-1455.

It’s a little late to do a 2009-in-review post. I’ll just say it was busy. And it’s been a stormy winter. I think/hope the last snowstorm of the winter has passed and spring should get underway. I look back on the last few months and I’m reminded of several crazy overnight post sessions. Editing into dawn and having night turn into day without any transition other than export/compress/upload. I’m really lucky that I work with cool people that are willing to undergo that with me over and over again.

2010 has spun into motion and it’s turbulent. We have had two major earthquakes in a month. I’m earning free flights rapidly. For some reason, the building’s boiler is working too good and it feels like summer in here. And I found myself laughing with a cab driver the other night, even though we couldn’t understand what one another was saying.

Hopefully, the ground stops shaking and things flow wonderfully into spring.

I had just finished a studio scout up near 44th street for a shoot happening soon and realized that the pace of my life is high and the movement around me matched. It’s so easy in this amazing city to get caught up in it all. The pulse seems to drive everything and a lot of the time I feel I’m in the stream of it. No matter how fast moving it is there can always be moments of pure beauty, incredible emotion and fascinating imagery.

It doesn’t take much to be inspired if you allow it. There are stories in every moment, all around us. You just need to stop once in a while and pay attention. New York City is an incredible place to have a visual journey. It is built from the energy of millions of us and the millions that came before us. All these stories surround and influence. They make me feel like anything is possible here.

It started to rain so I walked back my studio in the East Village with the palms of my hands open to catch every drop. It was warm and I didn’t mind being soaked. When I arrived, I thanked my boots for serving me well the last 6 years. They are probably the best pair I have ever had and I know we have a lot more ahead of us. So I looked up to the sky and thought it was ok to reach for it. There are only clouds in the way.