More Peyton
October 8th, 2010
I don’t have much time to write, but I wanted to do a new post for you. I’m about to leave on a trip and I don’t know if I’ll be able to do any posting while I’m away, so this may have to hold you for a few days.
This, of course, is the lovely Peyton Fontaine at Wekiwa Springs. We had a great day of shooting there, despite the sunshine. This was taken at one of the few moments when the sun ducked behind a cloud and gave me some softer light. Wish I could have worked with light like this the whole time I was in Florida. Maybe next trip.
Peyton and Shadow and Light
October 4th, 2010
Here’s something a little different of Peyton at Wekiwa Springs. I like this one because I think it is a good example of the difference between what the camera sees and what our eyes see. As I’ve said, I was struggling with working in bright sunlight. The contrast range in this photo is beyond what the camera is able to record. Our eyes see all this and compensate for the difference between the bright sun and the dark shadows and we see all the detail in all those places. The camera can’t capture all of that. The photographer’s job in this situation is to understand what the camera is going to do to the scene and work with that to make an effective photo.
I’m pretty pleased with what I was able to do with this situation. I let the shadows fall into black while trying to hold most of the highlights, although I compromised and let the highlights go just a bit off the end of the scale too. That allowed me to get good separation between Peyton’s lovely body and the brightly lit grass behind her. Letting the shadows go black worked to highlight the colorful reflections and the brightly lit moss on the log in the water to the left.
So, we get not what the swamp actually looked like, but an interpretation of the swamp that emphasizes some of the more beautiful elements of the scene and incorporates Peyton’s figure and her red hair as a focal point to draw your eye into the composition.
This is one of the photos included in my Wekiwa Springs calendar. There’s been an extension on one of the discount sales for those calendars. Use the code FALLPHOTO at checkout before October 8 and you will get a 20 percent discount on any calendars you buy. Visit my store to see previews of all of my 2011 calendars.
Another Shade of Kat
September 30th, 2010
Here’s something a little different that I shot of Kat while I was down in Florida. She’s a very fine model and a very nice person. It was a real treat to meet her and work with her. I’ll have more work done with her to share in the future. This one was done in the condo the evening before our Everglades trip.
One of the things that is going on in this photo is something I’ve been playing with for some time, using the Vibration Reduction capability of a lens to cause slightly different types of blurring than would happen without VR. In this case the blur isn’t much different from what would have happened if I had put the camera on a tripod, but it still made a photo that I find interesting.
I don’t have much news to share. I’m starting a couple new projects that may take my work in some new directions, but that is just at the beginning stages now and I’m not sure where it will end up going. That’s my approach to doing new things…just do it and see what happens, then analyze what I’ve done and see where I want to go from there. I think through shooting rather than thinking and then shooting. But, as I figure things out you are sure to see what I’m up to here on the blog.
People are starting to buy my calendars. You have the rest of today to take advantage of those discounts I mentioned in the last post. If there are other discounts in the future I’ll do my best to post them here for you to take advantage of them…but there is no promise that there will be savings like those being offered this month…so don’t wait if you think you’d like one of the calendars.
Calendar Time
September 25th, 2010
I’ve just finished publishing my calendars for 2011. They are all available at my Lulu store. You can click on any of the calendar covers below to go directly to that calendar or click the store link or the cover in the column over to the right.
There are actually a total of eight calendars for next year. Each of the themes comes in two sizes, so you can chose the photos you like and the price that fits your budget. Lulu does a really good job with the reproduction quality, so these will give you photos at a very reasonable price that look just fine for framing if you’d like to do that.
There are previews of each entire calendar at the store, so you can see all the photos.
Brooke On The North Shore is all photos from my trip this past spring with figure model Brooke Lynne.
Goddess Angie is a collection of photos I’ve done with Angie over the past couple years when we worked together almost weekly on all sorts of photos.
Wekiwa Springs includes photos that were all taken at Wekiwa Springs in Florida with figure models Claudine, Noelle Elise, Peyton Fontaine, and Z chel.
And, Figure In Nature is a collection of my other outdoor figure work.
Go to the store and take a look. If you hurry you can take advantage of a sale that runs through September 30. Just enter the code HARVEST305 at checkout and you will get a 25 percent discount.
And I just got a notice of another promotion. Use code FALLFOTO355 and you will get a 30 percent discount. This one is also good until September 30.
Swamp Kat
September 22nd, 2010
Last, and certainly not least, of my Florida models is Kat. I’m really impressed with her. We got some fine photos and we’ll soon be doing more work together when she comes up this way for some shooting next month. I predict many more excellent photos of Kat will be appearing here in the future. She’s beautiful and an amazing model. And, of course, a really nice person since I only work with nice people.
This was the afternoon of the last day of shooting on this Florida trip. The day started out sunny(of course) when we headed out from the Miami area into the Everglades. But by the afternoon some clouds had started to move in. Finally I was able to do a few photos without harsh direct sun.
This is the Everglades. There’s water under that grass. There were 14-foot ‘gators laying at every pull-out along the road, just watching the traffic and waiting for someone to let a poodle out of their car. This was my first time to visit the Everglades. It was about what I expected. Not exactly the sort of outdoor environment that I usually seek out for my photos, but with some interesting features and opportunities for composition.
This was very near the end of our shooting time. Soon after this was taken the rain started. Serious, toad strangling rain. I was at the end of my trip to Florida, so the weather went back to the normal daily rainstorms. So it goes.
My cold is finally better today, after about two weeks of misery. I’m convinced I caught the cold on the flights back home from Florida. Maybe I can get back to normal life now for a bit.
Fayth Up A Tree
September 19th, 2010
One of the things I love in Florida is the beautiful old live oak trees full of Spanish Moss. Getting a good photo of one of those was one of my goals on this last trip. I drive down I-75 and see hundreds of them that would be great, but they are right by the interstate, so that’s not going to happen. Other trees predominate in the swampy areas where we had been shooting. But then we met up with Fayth. She had a great location available and there we found this magnificent tree. If the weather had been more cooperative I think I could have done a better photo, but, of course, the sun was out full force, so I was limited in what I could do.
It was great to meet and work with Fayth on this trip. Our shoot was short and constrained by a number of outside factors, but I’m looking forward to working with her more in the future when I get back to Florida.
Meanwhile, back home, I’m fighting a miserable, stubborn cold. I thought it had started to go away, but it came back and I’ve not been able to do much more than sleep and sit around the house for the past week. I spent one day shooting, but it was too soon and the cold was back full force the next day. I’m hoping to be back to work on painting my house tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest…but I know if I go at it too soon I’ll just make the cold last longer, so I’ll wait and see how I feel in the morning.
There are more Florida photos to come. There’s one more new model from this trip to post. And there are other photos from the shoot this past week coming…so lots of new stuff for the blog, coming soon.
Peyton
September 16th, 2010
One of the great things about this latest Florida trip was that I got to work with some of my favorite models who I’ve worked with in the past as well as working for the first time with several wonderful models. The first of those new (to me) models was Peyton Fontaine. A beautiful, talented model and a nice person, of course…since I only work with nice people. She really was a great asset on the canoe adventure at Wekiwa Springs, both with her modeling and with the help she gave me in directing the shots to get the best results. She was full of excellent ideas and suggestions throughout the day of shooting. I hope to get to work with her again in the future. Of course, that’s Peyton above lounging on that oh-so-comfortable log in the swamp.
Things are pretty busy at home right now. I’m working on finishing up the painting of my house. I’m working on the stuff that I can reach from a 16-foot ladder while I leave the tall stuff to my son-in-law and his friends who are helping. We are making progress and hope to have the job finished in a couple weeks.
And I’m also doing a little shooting. And my luck with the sun is continuing. This is going to become known as the year of the sun as far as my photo work is concerned. It’s almost getting a bit weird. I had a shoot yesterday that had been scheduled for a while…set up before I left for Florida, in fact. Tuesday was completely overcast all day with beautiful light. Today it is raining and cloudy. But yesterday when I drove 3 hours each way to shoot in a location a friend had suggested? Bright hot sun all day, of course. One of these days I’m actually going to have some soft, overcast light to work with when I have a model available…one of these days…the odds are it’s bound to happen eventually.
It almost seems like a evil plot as far as the weather is concerned. I just noticed that one of the tires on my truck was a little low on air. So I went to the garage and turned on the air compressor and went back inside while it pumped up. There was some sun shining between the clouds…after a bit I went back out to air up the tire…and it immediately started raining on me in the driveway. If I believed in the kind of God that controls the weather I’d think he had it in for me.
On a happier note, I’m looking for dancers to model for me. I have a project which has some prospect of being published in a major magazine. I need talented, trained dancers who are comfortable with nudity to do this work in my studio. Ballet and modern training is good, although I’ll be open to most styles of dance and also some martial arts. Contact me if you are interested in being part of this project, or know someone who is.
Z chel
September 11th, 2010
The model I worked with the most on this latest trip is Z chel. I had worked with her before on an earlier trip and knew she was a great model, tall and beautiful and full of grace, and also a pleasure to be around. So I was very happy when she said she could join me on this trip and hang around for most of the time I was in Florida. And she even knows how to paddle a canoe. This is another photo from Wekiwa Springs. I have more of Z chel from the beach, other outdoor locations, hanging around the condos, and down in the Everglades. You’ll probably see some of those later. And there are more from Wekiwa Springs, including one taken right before she fell out of a tree and banged herself up a bit in the process.
I wasn’t going to post today because of the anniversary, but I had some free time and I won’t be able to post tomorrow, so I went ahead and did this post. But I can’t post today without at least a mention of the events of 9 years ago that changed the world in some very unfortunate ways and took the lives of so many innocent people. This day will be remembered and those people who lost their lives will be memorialized for as long as our country exists. And the United States of America will be here long after the scum who were behind those attacks have been tossed onto the dung heap of history.
JoJo In The Jungle
September 9th, 2010
Whenever I know I’ll be going to Florida one of the first things I do is contact JoJo to see if we can set up a shoot. She’s a great model and a lot of fun to work with. And she’s a really nice person. I only work with nice people, but JoJo is especially nice. And I always get some photos that are outstanding when I work with her. There’s just no down side. She’s the best.
This was taken in the Fort De Soto Park, at the south tip of the land where St. Petersburg is located. We got down there early in the morning and found quite a few people already there. We had hoped to shoot at the old fort and on the beach, but there were just too many other people around. But we had the trails in the “jungle” all to ourselves. That might have had something to do with the swarms of mosquitoes that were all around us the whole time we were in there. We were using good repellent that worked fairly well, but when you are in a cloud of mosquitoes some of them are bound to find you and bite anyway. We all got a number of bites that day. But we also got some good photos, despite the bright sun that was out the entire time we were trying to work.
Didn’t see any alligators or other dangerous creatures, other than the bugs, but it kind of looks like JoJo is worrying about something that might be about to attack her…maybe she was…maybe it was just the cloud of mosquitoes…
Claudine
September 7th, 2010
Despite the uncooperative weather this trip to Florida has been very productive and a lot of fun. I owe that almost entirely to the wonderful models I’ve worked with down here. So, over the next few posts I’m going to highlight each of the models for this trip and some of the work we did together.
First is Claudine. I’ve worked with her before in the Chicago area where she lives, as you know if you follow this blog in any regular way. She’s a great model and a fine person. When she heard about my Florida trip she decided it was a good excuse for her to get away from the windy city for a few days, so she got on a plane and showed up in Tampa. She was the first model to arrive ready to work, and she was here for most of a week doing her usual fantastic job of posing.
In this photo she is balancing on a log at Wekiwa Springs. She did a great job of posing in a difficult, uncomfortable situation. But we did learn one thing that was a small surprise. Claudine’s skills as a crew member on racing sailboats did not translate into skill paddling a canoe. But she still managed to get up and down the river without tipping the canoe over, so that’s all that really matters. So what if her canoe actually traveled about 3 times the distance of the river because of the zig zag path it took. Maybe she thought she was tacking?
Thank you Claudine for yet another great shoot…and another addition to my collection of figure in nature photos.
Claudine had left to return to Chicago before this next incident, so she is not one of the models implicated. But I do have to mention, that sometimes the models were just not willing to do what was needed to make the photos I wanted to make. Take this example in the photo to the right. We were out slogging around in the Everglades yesterday when I saw these beautiful lilies in bloom. All I needed was a beautiful naked model to lay down in the water surrounded by those lily pads and we would have had a great shot. The light was even working fairly well, despite the sun being out. But none of the models with me that day were willing to do the pose. I just can’t understand why they sometimes get reluctant. (You may want to click to bring up a larger version of the photo and look to see if you can find a reason that they didn’t want to pose there.)
