Ed's Page

FAQ And Goofing Around

How old are you?
Chronological 50, Psychological I'm probably 16, but can hit 19 or 20 on a good day. You know, a typical male!<G>

Where are you from?
I was born a second generation Italian/German Yankee. Northern New Jersey, exit unknown. Roughly 13 miles from Manhattan. Damn, I miss that city.

When did YOU start smoking?
Tried my mom's camel unfiltereds when I was 12, got caught, and restarted when I was 15 or 16.

How can you encourage smoking? It's a health hazard!
My work is not to encourage smoking. It's a legacy from my (our) early lives. It's how I cope with this embedded desire. I NEVER use non-smokers. I usually encouage light smokers away from this endeavor. I look for people like myself who truly enjoy their cigarettes. I am a 2.5 to 3 pack a day smoker. I am a smoke fetishist in many ways, I don't just enjoy looking at others.

How did having the fetish affect your life?
I'm sure the phrase "The only one on the planet" rings a bell. Not only colored my self-perception but obviously all my relationships as well. It made for some fun times as well as some very bad times. My social skills developmental years were a mite stressful.

Why do you make smoking videos?
Smoking images have haunted me since early adolescence. In my eye it was seduction in it's purest form. An icon from an era that raised me. As many of us do, I satisfied my love with what I could find in print or film media. It wasn't until the late 80s (after a smoking fetish related divorce, of course) that I started doing stills and, eventually, video for myself. All the while thinking I was the only one odd enough to have this as a fetish.

When and why did Colight form?
Having found a spare few other smoke lovers via a book collector in 1993 I shared some of my early personal work with them. Since I was already working with lighting the smoke they liked it. So, we started by trading our work. During 94 and 95 word spread slowly about my lighting techniques and people started offering to buy it. So, in August of 1995 I created CoherentLight as a formal entity. It was the front page story of the January 31st, 1996 issue of the Wall Street Journal that took Colight to a global level.

Why name it CoherentLight rather than, say, smoke and light?
Because I'm in love with double meanings. A laser is light in a coherent form. The second meaning is simply light that is understandable (coherent). Since there were no other smoking fetish video producers marketing their own work when I went on-line I could have picked any name I wanted. (What can I tell ya.' I'm a fan of words and the physical sciences.... go figure!)

Why do you compromise the natural/spontaneous look just to use lighting?
Hmmmm... How to do a short version. OK.. Here goes. I started with an idiot "point and shoot" camera with no photographic training. Sorry to say, I still don't have the training. However, I did, and still do, spend a lot of time working with light to catch the smoke. Bright and hopefully realisitc smoke is my favorite playground. I'm not necessarily a fast learner since I tend to learn by trial and error. But given the number of people who, ummm, emulate my style, I'd say that my living-room-studio efforts were worthwhile. Also, since I work with everyday women instead of models I must use a technique that does not require a professional model's rigorous training. So, my lighting makes it much easier on them. However, I do learn a bit more every day and even though I am a shy person you may see more "real life" work show up in the future.

How do you define yourself?
1. Perverse - To vary from the norm. Thank God!
2. Deviant - To deviate from the norm. Ditto!
3. Profane - Non-religious, secular, "outside the precincts of the temple." Although I was an alterboy and a damned good one!<G>
4. Insanely curious about so many things. But, I am too lazy to make an in-depth study of any one field<g> . . . so, I learn what I can about a wide variety of things. I especially enjoy learning how things work. Doesn't matter if it's a plumbing fixture or a stellar nursery.
5. An introverted extravert.

So, you're pretty weird?
Yup!

P.S. Here is flash of nostalgia from my adolescence. I recall other smoking images from my youth, but this was the first one I was able to find as an adult.