From a consumer standpoint, I fully agree with barefootfootseeker that it is a pity.. I would definitely be eager to admire your fantastic models without.. excess clothing, Zane!
Yet from the perspective of a former producer and vendor of such material.. I would say that yours is a wise decision.
I have come to the conclusion that the potential market for the "nudity + dirty soles" combo is probably not enough to justify the substantial additional costs.. and nuisances. And sadly for me, I have learned that the hard way.. that is, by trial and error. The fact that both Public Sluts and BAREFOOT NUDITY went bust should teach some lessons to other folks willing to engage themselves in similar endeavours.

I can definitely confirm what you wrote, Zane!
A girl that looks great in pictures/videos is not necessarily fun to work with, and to interact with once the camera is off.
By contrast, there are girls I have worked with that would never make it to Vanity Fair's cover.. yet spending time with them is among the most pleasant experiences that I can enjoy.
Plus, it is absolutely true that the personal favourites by us footographers may not coincide with the most popular models. That said, it is not wise from a commercial viewpoint to disclose too much our personal tastes..

P.S. just a warning about michael0218's appreciation, Zane.. he basically loves ANY barefooting girl.. other than most of the ones appearing on BAREFOOT URBAN GIRLS!

Yes these are particularly dangerous times for photographing nudes given the current cultural blowback, photographing feet though eccentric is relatively benign and innocent in comparison. As for the general aesthetic late 60's is good, the idea is to have models that look as though they go barefoot already, perhaps no makeup and the look of an old 16mm movie of Berkeley, Woodstock or London that you can find on YouTube, a couple of which have been posted in the forum is a good reference in terms of style, Hal Heaven and Feetstopher are also good references. I don't know what it is there seems to be more barefoot girls in Europe than in the US with occasional rare exceptions it seems they vanished after the Grateful Dead.

Hello city-feet crew,

I have some unfortunate news to share, which I just posted on my Patreon as well.

Covid-19 has impacted us all in various ways, and though I remain healthy, it has badly affected my day-to-day work. As a result, I’ve decided to take a new position in another state, far from sunny SoCal. As it turns out, this is a better professional opportunity, but the weather in my new home won’t be conducive to barefoot photo shoots during much of the year.

Covid also prevented me from shooting much in 2020, so I’ve pretty much run through my backlog. I have a few girls left, but they’re mostly the “not so great” shoots that aren’t up to the standards I’ve set. Between my upcoming move, the weather in the new home state, and the lack of sufficient backlog, I’m sad to announce that I’ll be bringing SGM to a close, at least for now.

I will be continuing to post through August to make sure my patrons get their money’s worth, which means finishing Sonali and a new “Zoe Returns” set. So if you want to take the opportunity to grab all my sets for a mere $15, now is the time!

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with the page yet. I may pull it down at the end of the month or leave it up for a while for those who might have missed it.

I’ll still be checking in here too.

Anyway, all the chaos of changing jobs and getting ready to move prevented me from posting last week, so here are some samples from Sonali’s second set, as her soles became contenders for the filthiest ever, and also the first part of Zoe’s Return!

Sonali first:






And now the return of Zoe - a little more tattooed, a little more punk, but still super cool:

Hi Zane!

Thanks a lot for these beautiful previews.

All the best in your new position! I am sure you'll rock.

Dear Zane.. those are VERY sad news!
For the little it is worth, you have all my sympathy, both personally and "professionally".
In the last seven years I have somehow managed to keep my barefootographic projects alive in spite of assorted hurdles and fading health..
but sometimes there are trains in life that you cannot miss, or changes that you cannot avoid.
Yet in 14 months of activity at SGM you have made some milestone achievements, and those will stay forever:
you have been the first US footographer to launch a paysite exclusively focused on barefooting since Dennis Cramer's/Crabapple's seminal Barefoot Mara project in the late 1990s; and with wonderful ASHLEY, RACHEL and GABRIELLE you have given us three of the most gorgeous barefoot beauties of the last decade.
I definitely hope that you will remain active here in the forum: you are one of the coolest and friendliest dudes that I have ever met here!
So I wish you all the best, and I hope that you will be able to revive your SGM project one day. NEVER let your dreams die, man!
Take care, ciao from Italy!

Hello Zane, those are very sad news. I have lost my regular job exactly because of Covid-19. I will miss your updates here. The Feetosopher is right: Ashley, Rachel and Gabrielle can compete with the top models of City Feet, Toes-In-Action and Barefoot Urban Girls. I hope that you will remain active in the forum: you are a brilliant guy and you have always been friendly towards me. I wish you all the best for your new career, and life in general. And I hope that you will bring Shoeless Girl Media back some day. Ciao from Italy!

Zane,

You're just hitting your stride! Where ever you go there will be barefoot girls. Don't give up! Use what you learned in Cali and bring it to where ever you go.

Thank you all for your kind words! I'm very happy that you've enjoyed the photos I've posted over the past year or so. It's been a lot of fun to run the Patreon page, and city-feet has always been my best source of expert feedback and comments.

@DG2001 - I'm glad you liked the previews. Sonali will be back for her final set this week, competing for the filthiest soles ever on SGM.

@feetosopher - I'm highly impressed with your ability to keep your site going for as long as you have. Now that I've run a site, I have even more respect for your persistent efforts over the past seven years.

Until you pointed it out, I hadn't fully realized that SGM was the only barefooting paysite from the US since the 90s. Clearly that needs to change!

@barefootfootseeker - I will miss Ashley, Rachel, and Gabrielle (as well as my other favorites). I'm glad I had a chance to at least bring Zoe back before leaving SoCal.

I'll still be dropping by the forums, especially on weekends. Thanks for the best wishes, and there's always a chance SGM will return after I get settled in the new location.

@DBF - One thing I really like about SoCal is the diversity of models... and the unusual concentration of beautiful women, probably due to the entertainment industry. I think I'll find a less diverse pool of models elsewhere, and my models would be more predominantly white, but you never know. And you're right that barefoot women can be found everywhere.

Hello Zane.. well, BAREFOOT URBAN GIRLS is still online mainly because it has become my main hobby.. and because I am a stubborn, in-your-face guy. I am keeping BUG alive also to kick the ass of my haters.. I have built my share of them over the years.. including in this forum..
Business-wise, I should have shut down the site 3-4 years ago.
Whatever.. I wish you all the best again.. and I count on your future appearances here in the forum! Ciao from Italy!

Today I posted the final set with the beautiful and tough-soled Sonali. Being a frequent barefooter whose feet seemed particularly good at attracting dirt, Sonali was game for competing in an unofficial "filthy soles contest" with my previous models. So I took her to the dirtiest parking garage in SoCal for the final third of her shoot, and as you can see below, she was a clear contender for the title by the end.

This week's set also includes some closeups of Sonali's pitch black soles.

Here are the samples!

Zane, good luck at your new job and new state. We all hope your love of barefooting woman photography will bring you back one day. Hey even in a colder state 6 months of photography is still not too shabby (I'm sure your warmer than city-feet's photosites!). And sometimes a barefoot woman in jeans and sweater on a cool October day can be sexier than just shorts. Thanks for all your contributions to the field of barefooting women.

sorry to hear you will have to move to another city for your job
wish you all the best mate, you had a very good start with SGM and i hope that once you are settled in your new town, you will able to continue with SGM again,
Good luck!!

Thanks shifter and jwdf88! Who knows, maybe women in another part of the country will be friendlier to barefooting than most CA girls.

So this might be my final set of SGM photos, at least for a long while. I'm not sure yet whether I'll post one of the "reserve" models next week, since there will only be a couple days before EOM.

If this is the last set, then I'm happy to end with Zoe, a model who became a friend as well as a subject. She manged to get her feet into everything from motor oil and "normal" dirt to the soot and filth washed off hundreds of cars. As always, she was grinning and laughing through it all.

Here's some samples from Zoe's final set on Shoeless Girl Media: