Another side of CareLyn
December 10th, 2006
Here’s CareLyn Anita again. She does like corsets. I did photos of her completely nude, but the corset photos seem to be the best. I’ll probably find a figure study of her from this shoot to post sometime. And I certainly hope to work with her again. A great model.
Can’t say the same for the model who I was supposed to shoot today. As I had begun to suspect, she turned out to be a no-show, no-call. She just didn’t show up, didn’t respond to e-mail or phone calls and left me hanging. Since she didn’t have the courtesy to let me know she wasn’t going to do the shoot we had scheduled, it was too late for me to schedule another model. Lapis made a serious attempt to find someone for me, but it was just too short notice for that to work. So I was unable to do any shooting in my room with daylight. So it goes when you work with “internet models.” There are a lot of flakes. I won’t put her name and Model Mayhem number on the blog…although I was very tempted to do that…but if anyone, especially in the Chicago area, wants to be sure to avoid being put in this position by this model, just send me an e-mail and I’ll be happy to tell you who she is.
I salvaged the day by making a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. They have an excellent photo exhibit hanging now, and I made quick passes through some of the modern art galleries. Didn’t have time to even see an eighth of their collection, and spent the last hour just walking through galleries without stopping. Going to have to come back and spend days there. A really great art museum.
Tomorrow I’ll pack up and head back home to Ohio. I have several studio shoots scheduled for this coming week. Should have more photos to share here.
Lapis
December 9th, 2006
Had a great shoot with Lapis today. She is a hoot. Real fun, real interesting. Still don’t know if tomorrow’s model is going to be a no show or not…she’s not responding to e-mail or phone messages. Part of the drill when you work with “internet models.”
I have an old, single-element, soft focus lens that is in a Nikon mount. That’s what I used for this photo. It’s a very old effect, and different from what you can get with filters in photoshop. The Lensbaby is similar, though different, but uses the same sort of old-fashioned single-element lens to produce the soft effect. As you can see, the highlights bleed into the shadows, producing the soft look. So it works best when there are some bright places well located in the image. When mounted on my digital Nikons I’ve sometimes referred to it as my digital Holga, much to the dismay of some Holga fanatics. But I like the effect for some photos, and it’s fun to work with, so I pull it out of the camera bag every once in a while and see what I can do with it.
Even if tomorrow’s model fails to appear, it’s been a good trip, thanks to Lapis and CareLyn Anita. Thanks ladies.
Corset
December 8th, 2006
CareLyn Anita wearing her corset. Shot last night in my Chicago hotel room. CareLyn is a great model, a fun person to be around, and very good looking. She’s also only 4’11” tall, not the standard model height, but that’s never been an issue with me. In fact, I really like short models. And, you wouldn’t have known she was that short from this photo if I hadn’t told you…
When I left for Chicago I had shoots scheduled with 5 models. So far I’ve done one shoot and two models have cancelled. That’s pretty much standard when working with “internet models” so it’s not unexpected. At least these two had the courtesy and professionalism to let me know they were not going to be able to do the shoots we had planned. Still, two more shoots scheduled while I’m here.
I’m pretty disappointed in my hotel room as a shooting location. It’s a nice room, but lacks style. My Sunday shoot is the only one I’ll be doing during the day in the room and I’m hoping using daylight will help me make the room look more interesting. We’ll see. Tomorrow’s shoot is at a studio/home location, so that should offer more possibilities.
I spent today at Calumet Photo learning about some new printers and software. I learned that the NIK software is pretty much just a way to replicate cheesy filters and effects that we used to do in camera. Not much application for it in creative work. But the new Nikon Capture NX software looks useful. And I’m pretty impressed with the new Epson 3800 printer. Both color and black and white prints look great. In fact, I’d have to say that it goes beyond what is possible with conventional darkroom materials, color and black and white. Now I have to see if I can justify buying one. How many 16×20 prints would I have to make to make it pay for itself? Hmmm…
Another Pinhole
December 7th, 2006
I’m on the road to Chicago today and don’t know if I’ll have time to post after I get there. So you have to look at another of my digital pinhole photos to tide you over until I can post something from the trip or a more conventional nude from the files.
This is Nemesis again. She’s damn handy to have around.
Another crappy photo
December 6th, 2006
Well, I guess I’m just in a crappy camera kind of mood. This was shot with a good camera, my old Nikon D100. But it was shot with a home made pinhole in place of the lens. I like mixing old and new technologies and seeing what happens. It really doesn’t matter what method is used to record the image. And digital makes it a good bit easier in this case too. The instant review allows me to adjust exposure and composition. Since it’s impossible to see anything through the viewfinder that helps. And I don’t have to wait to process film to find out what effective aperture the pinhole happens to be. By increasing the ISO I’m actually able to hand hold the camera. And I can take as many images as I want, not limited by the single sheets of some pinhole cameras.
The model is the wonderful Nemesis who always seems to be willing to humor me when I have some weird new setup I want to try out. Light is window light in my studio.
I’m off to Chicago in the morning for a few days of shooting and a visit to the Calumet “Digital Days.” I should have internet access in my hotel, so I hope I’ll be able to post…maybe some of the new things I’ll be shooting there.
Mini Digital
December 5th, 2006
Just for fun. And why do we do this if not for fun? I shot this photo of Amanda tonight with a brand new digital camera I just bought yesterday. It cost $10 at the Walgreens up the street. It’s a real digital camera. Hooks up to the computer with USB. You can use it over and over as long as you keep downloading and deleting the files from the camera. Has enough internal memory for 20 “high” resolution shots. Yes, it’s crappy quality and the files are tiny (high resolution is pretty low). But WOW! Ten dollars! And it takes photos. This has shot in fairly dim light inside. I’m going to have to shoot something outdoors or by a window in daylight to see if the softness is camera movement or just the lens. It’s an f/2.8 lens…amazing.
Just for fun. But really, I can remember (showing my advanced age) when a digital camera of this resolution cost $20,000.
Could this be the true digital Holga?
Color again
December 4th, 2006
OK, back to something serious. Well, not to say that photography is anything to be taken seriously, but some photos are more serious than others, I suppose. This is one of those photos that I think all photographers have: One that no one but the photographer seems to “get.” I love this photo. But I don’t think anyone who I’ve ever shown it to has seen what I see in it without prompting. I’m willing to say that is most likely a failing of the photographer and the photo. But I still see it. Let me give you a hint.
Much of my work has to do with the interaction of the female figure with its surrounding environment.
OK…another hint: I’m very interested in color.
Still don’t see it? That’s ok, no one does…sigh. So I guess the photo is a failure.
What I see here, and no one else notices, is the effect the nude body has on the color of the surrounding background. If you look to the right of the figure, to the right of the shadow, you will see the “true” color of the barn siding. On the left, where the sun is striking the figure and being reflected strongly you will see that the color of the siding has been changed, warmed up, by the reflected flesh color.
I find that interesting. I know it’s subtle. I know it happens all the time, but we seldom notice it, let alone pay any attention to it. Does it matter? Maybe, maybe not. To me it is just one more small way to observe that we cannot be on this planet without changing it. Even just standing there in the sun we are changing the way the sun hits the planet and interacts with it. And the figure here is impacting the things that surround it in many ways. Color is just one, but to me it’s an interesting impact. Almost as interesting as the red rock glow in the desert canyons.
Christmas Eve
December 3rd, 2006
Well, this is something completely different. Pretty cheesy too, if I do say so myself. So just let me say up front, I meant that. This is the newest addition to my ongoing “Many Faces of Eve” project. If you’ve looked through my web site you may be familiar with some of the photos in that series. I’ve wanted to do “Christmas Eve” for a long time, but never was able to get just what I was after, but today, thanks to Amanda, I finally have it. The idea I’m trying to get to here is the temptation of the commercial Christmas as seen through the original temptress, Eve. But I hope that’s obvious.
Colors
December 2nd, 2006
Sometimes it isn’t about the light. Here the light is simply soft and unobtrusive. It’s the colors that I was working with in this composition. I saw the possibilities provided by the yellow flowers and green leaves. I asked the model to lie down in the stream and cover herself with the black mud in the stream bed. It was a hot day for once, so this wasn’t a huge sacrifice for her. I wanted the rich black as a background for the bright colors. I was also trying to change the way the model’s figure was seen, and to work on the theme of the unity of the figure with nature. You can probably draw some ideas about the woman as water symbol, earth mother, mother nature from this and many of my other photos. Those are the themes I work on all the time.
This photo was taken in a stream feeding into a small lake near my home in Ohio. While I often travel to different locations to do photos, I also work near my home and just where ever I happen to be when an opportunity for a photo comes my way. Most lakes have a lot of shallow swampy areas on the upstream end. There are usually beautiful backgrounds there.
Theda again
December 1st, 2006
It’s too cold out today to post an outdoor nude, so here’s another shot of Theda in a hotel room. This shot was posted on D. Brian Nelson’s Hotel Room Nudes blog in October when I was a guest photographer there. Again, like the last post of Theda, this shot is about color and light and about using the environment of a hotel room to make an image. Here’s what I wrote about it then:
In May I made a trip to New York City to do a studio shoot with Theda and another favorite model, Kat. When I contacted Theda about the shoot she said she would like to also shoot in a somewhat famous, but cheap for Manhattan, hotel. So I got a room…5th floor walkup and she came over to the hotel after the studio shoot. I work in color and this room really worked for that. I love the colors in this shot with Theda’s body becoming the only somewhat non-color element in the composition. I had just gotten a new lens before this trip, at 12-24mm zoom. It let me do wide angle work with my digital Nikon again, and made this shot possible. Light is from the single window. Shot at 12mm, f/4.5 1/80, ISO 800. Exposure done in program mode with a -1.3 compensation. The program exposure mode on most modern cameras is much better at getting the right exposure than even the most meticulous photographer with a hand-held meter. You just have to know when the program mode is going to be wrong. That’s easy with a digital camera. Just look at the histogram and see exactly where each tone in the photo is, using math, not guesswork. Using those tools it is very easy, and very precise, to set exactly the exposure you want to get the look you are after in an image. It helps to know a bit about the zone system and to have some ability to pre-visualize what you want the final image to look like. Here all I really had to do was be careful to hold detail in the highlights and then pull up the shadows in photoshop later.
