Fun With Tree Roots
July 2nd, 2012
Uprooted trees can provide great places to pose the female figure. We found a good one when Antoine and I were shooting Sarah and Dyaphanye in Savannah.
The sun was coming up fast and bright and hot, so we were dealing with that challenge while working on these.
As always, it really helps to have a beautiful location and lovely, talented models who understand what we are trying to do. Thank you Sarah and Dyaphanye!
Savannah Dawn
June 28th, 2012
After my shoot with Dyaphanye I got up the next morning before dawn to meet her and Antoine again for an early morning shoot outdoors. And that morning we were joined by another wonderful, beautiful model, Sarah. I’d worked with Sarah before on my last trip to Savannah, so I knew we were going to have a great shoot.
Of course, it would have been easier work if there had been some clouds to soften the light. But that was not to be, so it was a morning of dealing with strong Georgia sun and trying to control contrast. Challenging light. But with great models and a beautiful setting, it’s worth the effort…and the effort is rewarded.
I’ll have more to show you from this shoot in the next couple posts.
And the Light had Stripes
June 23rd, 2012
Here are some more photos of Dyaphanye from our first day of shooting in Savannah. The striped light has, of course, been done many, many times. Nothing new there. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still fun to play around with. So we did. And fun it was.
These were processed in ACDSee Pro 5, just for kicks. I’m finding I like using the exposure band adjustments in that program. It’s an easy way to fine tune the tones at different points in the tonal scale.
One other fun thing about this shoot that I haven’t mentioned yet is that an old friend was also there. I met Antoine De Villiars when she lived near Dayton. Then she moved to Savannah. We’ve tried without success to get together on past trips I’ve made down there, but this time we worked it out. Although Antoine is primarily a painter, she also does some photography. So she brought her camera and joined Dyaphanye and me for the shoot at Dyaphanye’s apartment. It was a fun shoot for all of us.
More From Savannah and the Big Apple
June 19th, 2012
Sorry to go so long without a new post. That was not my intention. But I was traveling and was surprised to find that there was no internet and no cell service where I was staying. Now that I’m back to civilization I’ll try to pick up the pace a bit.
This is more of Dyaphanye from our shoot in Savannah. You can get some idea of what a dedicated model she is from the fact that she had emptied a room in her apartment to give us a good space to work in. That room had some interesting things going on with the light coming through the windows, so we played with that for a bit. I’m pleased with the results.
There’s more to come from my work with Dyaphanye. She was great to work with. I’m looking forward to shooting with her again this summer.
I actually wasn’t in the hinterlands the entire time I’ve been away. I also spent a little time in New York City. But while I was there I was far too busy to find time for blogging. You’ll be seeing the results from a wonderful shoot I did with two fantastic NYC models, Venus de Milo and Erica Jay. My old friend Dave Rudin was along for that shoot too. It was a great day in the woods. Dave has already posted a few photos from the shoot on his blog, so you can check them out now at his link.
I also got to meet up with some other friends, both old and new, while I was in the city. I was able to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the company of two lovely models, Venus from the shoot and Claudia of Museworthy fame. Claudia is a full-time professional artist’s model in NYC and knows everything about art, so it was wonderful to wander around the Met with her. In particular I was interested in seeing the current nude show, “Naked before the Camera,” that is up at the Met. Claudia has blogged about it already here. If you are in NYC and have any interest in nude photography, you should not miss this show.
Quick Post
June 9th, 2012
I had planned a much more extensive post for today, but I’m having computer problems and it has kept me from working on this all evening. So, here are a couple photos from one of my shoots in Savannah back in March. The model is Dyaphanye. She is lovely and quite an accomplished artist herself, so it is a very interesting experience to work with her. She’s someone who brings a lot more than a nude body to the shoot. I hope to work with her again in Maine this summer.
More about this and another shoot down in sunny Savannah when I have more time and can provide a few more details on all the fun that happened when I was down there.
I guess I should mention that these were shot with my trusty old single element soft focus lens. So, yes, I meant them to look like that.
Camera Porn
June 5th, 2012
It’s Kirk Tuck’s fault. He wrote this post on his blog a while back. I wasn’t planning, and had no desire, to buy another camera. But at $150 for a 12 mp camera, how could I resist? (I see the price has gone up to $170 as I’m typing this…still one hell of a bargain.)
But it wasn’t the camera that really hooked me. It was the availability of adapters to mount just about any lens ever made on the thing. I thought about my old Leica lenses sitting in the equipment cabinet beside my old M2, unused for years. And then there are all those old Nikon manual focus lenses, some that never got converted to “AI” so I can’t even mount them on my new Nikons, let alone focus them with the new clear screens.
So I ordered the camera and adapters for Leica M and Nikon F mount lenses.
And boy am I happy I did. I’m having a ball with my old lenses. They work well with this camera. Aperture priority provides auto exposure that is dead on. The lenses stop down to the shooting aperture all the time, but the screen on the back of the camera is bright and it’s easy to focus using the magnifier that instantly pops up a highly enlarged spot…it’s like putting a loupe on the ground glass of a view camera.
Sure, it isn’t fast. But I’m not going to try to shoot basketball with this setup. What I am going to do is use a bunch of my old lenses and have fun. The 2x factor of the micro 4/3 sensor is making some interesting things possible.
So, here are some photos of the camera with some of my old lenses, just so you can see what it looks like:
35mm Canon f/2 rangefinder lens. This was my favorite lens when I was using the Leicas every day when I worked as a newspaper photographer. It’s a bit strange that from being a beautiful moderate wide-angle lens, it is now effectively a 70mm…a nice portrait focal length:
Here it is with the Elmar 90mm f/4, a lens so sharp you have to be careful not to cut yourself:
And the old 200mm f/4 Nikkor…it never got the AI conversion because I had an 80-200 f/2.8. But it’s a good, sharp lens, despite the front element looking like someone cleaned it with sandpaper. And, on this camera it’s effectively a 400mm f/4:
I didn’t even think about this lens when I was thinking about what I’d do with this camera. But I should have. This was my primary lens for more than 20 years on my trusty old FE. It’s a Tokina 28-70 zoom. It’s sharp. It’s small and light. It’s a perfect match for this Olympus. It’s clearly going to be the lens I use on it the most:
Here’s a shot I took with that zoom when I was out hiking a few days ago. It has a very nice macro ability. These flowers are about an inch across:
My 50mm f/1.4 is a newer autofocus lens, but it’s fun on the Olympus. Effectively 100mm f/1.4 = fun with portraits:
My 85mm f/1.8 was another favorite lens from the manual focus days. Nice to be able to play with it again:
It’s been a long time since I used my old 24mm f/2.8. Now it’s a “normal” lens on the Olympus:
My 8mm fisheye might be fun on this camera. It’ll be easier to focus, if nothing else:
Here’s a fisheye shot done with the Olympus:
I’m not much of a long telephoto shooter, so I never used this old 60-300 Tamron lens much. But it might get a workout now…effective 600mm can be fun to play with. I never had a reason to buy a lens that long:
Here’s a shot across the street with the 60-300 at 60 (effectively 120). They are installing new gas lines in my neighborhood so the place has been torn up and full of trucks and backhoes and such for a long time:
Here’s what 300mm looks like from the same spot:
The photos of the camera and lenses were shot quick and dirty with available overcast light on my front porch using my D7000 and 18-200 lens. They were processed quick and dirty in ACDSee Pro5.
The photos shot with the Olympus I left as they came out of the camera. The only adjustment was to reduce the size of the file for web use. They could clearly be improved with a few quick levels adjustments, but I thought you might like to see what they looked like with no post work done on them. They were shot using Aperture priority auto exposure with no compensation in camera.
I’m impressed with this little camera and happy to be playing with my old lenses. I might even have to spring for a lens that is made for the camera so I can use it with all its features like auto focus. And, of course, the eye-level finder would be nice…but I think I’m going to have a hard time convincing myself to buy an Electronic Viewfinder that costs almost twice what I paid for the camera I’d mount it on.
Oh, and yes, you can select from several formats for your photos on this camera. So I set it to square just because I could…and it took me back to my square format medium format days. (And, besides, this little camera is a little hard to hold in the vertical position.)
Naked In Pittsburgh
May 31st, 2012
I have work in this show opening tomorrow night in Pittsburgh. It looks to be a fine show with a lot of excellent work. I won’t be able to make it over for the opening this time, but I hope those of you in the Pittsburgh area will go by and see the show.
So, I guess we’ll have Charlye Raine beat the drums for that show…here are a few more photos from my day of shooting Charlye at Mike Elsass‘ studio:
Looks a little fishy…
Dabbling in Paint
May 27th, 2012
As I continue to work my way through my backlog of shoots, I’ve now reached the end of February. Slow but steady progress. This was a fun shoot…as I’m sure you can see. There’s a painter who has his studio in the same building as mine. Mike Elsass also has a gallery in the Oregon District in Dayton where he shows his work and also the work of some other fine artists from around the country.
Mike asked me to bring a nude model in to hang around his studio while he paints. Might sound a little weird, but it really isn’t. I did this once before with Mike and it was a great day. I knew this would be a lot of fun for the model and that Mike would capture the energy of the day in the work he was doing.
To make the day even better, I got an old friend who has modeled for me in the past, but not recently, to come in for this. I hadn’t shot with Charlye Raine for quite a while…but when we were working together regularly she was a favorite model who helped me produce some of my favorite photos. So this was a great chance to work with her again.
We hung around Mike’s studio for several hours. Charlye helped with the painting. Mike worked on his paintings which are done on rusted steel panels. It was a lot of fun for everyone and even resulted in some fun photos.
And, another technical note. These are all available light, which is probably obvious. But I processed the files differently this time. I decided to try working them all the way through using ACDSee Pro 5. That program has some very useful editing tools that I wanted to play with. I’m very happy with the results. I’ll probably still buy PhotoShop CS6…but I’m really wondering if I need it…
Ayn in Other Light
May 23rd, 2012
Here are a couple different photos of Ayn shot in the studio at another time from the earlier photos I’ve posted recently. I was experimenting with other kinds of lighting when I did these photos. I’d tell you about these lighting setups, but I didn’t take notes and now I have no idea what I did when I shot these. I’m really bad about taking notes. When I was younger I could usually remember stuff like that, but times, and my calcified brain, have changed and that’s no longer the case. I know this and know I should take better notes…but I keep forgetting. So it goes.
But, nevertheless, Ayn is beautiful and talented and was having some fun trying different things when we shot these. I’m looking forward to doing more work with her outdoors now that summer is here. And, even though it is technically still spring, when I see temperatures in the upper 90s in the forecast, I consider summer to have arrived.
Ayn’s Front
May 18th, 2012
Here are some more photos of Ayn from my test of the lighting technique shared with me by MC Grain. Ayn looks great from pretty much any angle, and I’m really enjoying what this light does with her figure. I’ll be doing some more work with this light. And I’m looking forward very much to doing a lot more work with Ayn in the coming months.
I tried a different workflow for my editing of these three photos. I did the conversion from RAW in Nikon View NX2. But then, instead of opening the files in PhotoShop, I worked with them first in ACDSee Pro 5, which is the program I usually use for viewing and selecting photos. I’m experimenting with the fairly sophisticated image editing capabilities in that program. I may be using it more in the future, once I get through the learning curve and get comfortable with the many options it offers for selective control of the editing process. I’ll let you know what I think as I experiment more with it.
But I have a very busy weekend coming up, with a very important family event. Next week I’ll be getting back to work on photo stuff. Meanwhile, enjoy Ayn.
