FrecklesEvery week Richard Kern invites us to his L.E.S. apartment where we go through a huge box of archival photographs from his long and checkered career. This week's featured model is "Freckles" a shy redhead who didn't want to use her real name.VICE: Who is this?
Richard: I called her Freckles, [laughs] because I knew that she didn’t want to be—she was someone who freaked out when I put her on my website.
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Well, it could have been, but I’d have to look it up. I ended up selling the panties at one of those shows, but not the pair on her. On a different girl.Where is she from?
I don’t know where she’s from, I think she’s French. She spoke French, actually. A Swiss person I know said she’s Swiss though, so….This was one of the times when I put an ad on Craigslist. There was a period before we started Shot by Kern where the models had died out. I’d gone through every girl I knew and all their friends. I knew I’d have to meet a whole new group of people, or something. So I was putting ads on Craigslist, and one out of maybe 20 people would be good. And she was one of the ones who showed up. I guess she was just passing through town and said she wanted to model. It was one of those times when it was just like, “Holy cow, look at this girl!” Just all those freckles and that hair.When I put the ads on Craigslist I’d go through hundreds of emails. I’d always ask people to send photos. This was right at the beginning of Facebook and all that shit, so people didn’t have as many Facebook photos, but they still had some.This was before camera phones.
Yeah. They'd send some photos of them just standing around hiding their face. This girl, I think I got her up here and said, “Yes, I’ll shoot you.” I still ask them now to show up in person. Anyway, I got maybe four or five girls off of Craigslist who were any good over that whole period of time, which was about two years. It was pretty slim pickings.Previously - Kaori