Studio Testing
August 24th, 2013
Ebay is a dangerous place. A while back I saw a spotlight for my strobe system on there and decided to bid on it. I’d always wondered what I might be able to do with a spotlight, but they were always way too expensive for me to spend the money to find out. Well, I went ahead and placed a low-ball bid on this one and much to my surprise I won the auction. Soon this new piece of lighting gear arrived at the studio. Now I needed to find out just what it was good for.
To my great good fortune, an old friend and model volunteered to stop in, shed her clothes, and let me aim the spotlight at her for some photos. As you can probably see, I decided to try shooting the light through an old cookie that I have at the studio to see what it would do. I did some other things with it too…but these were the photos that looked half way decent to my eye.
My friend looks great, of course. She’s a very impressive woman. On the other hand, I really wasn’t all that impressed with the spotlight. I think I’m actually happier with the light I get just using a grid on a strobe head. The spot is stronger and harder light, but I don’t really think it works that well for the kind of work I do in the studio. So now I’m thinking about selling it. I don’t think I’ll be using it much.
I even tried it as a background light, but, again, I’m not seeing how it is much better than just using a grid. I may do some more playing around with it before I part with it…but I’m really not feeling like it’s a great investment for me.
But it gives us all an excuse to enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman, so that’s something.
The Moon Over Moonville
August 17th, 2013
After Artistic Physique had spent the morning working at Hocking Hills we rounded up some lunch and went looking for some other places to shoot.
I had heard for years about Moonville…an abandoned town in the Zaleski State Forest, but had never been there. I got some directions and we set out, finding it with no difficulty. Nothing left of a town, but there is an abandoned railroad tunnel there. The tunnel itself was not that interesting, but at one end of it the deteriorating stonework combined with the sunlight through trees and the inevitable graffiti made for an interesting background. And AP, being of a somewhat compact size, was a good fit for the openings left by some of the missing stones. We saw no signs of the famous ghost, by the way.
One reason I decided to visit Moonville on this particular day was because it was the day before the full moon. That’s the day when the moon and the sun are both above the horizon at the same time for as little as a half hour to as much as an hour and a half, depending on the month. I thought it would be fun to do a moon photo at Moonville. Well, as soon as we got to the tunnel I saw that it obviously was not going to work as a location for a moon photo. There was no place there where I could get a clear view of the horizon in the direction where the moon would rise. So we did our Moonville photos and went looking for a spot to shoot a moonrise photo.
As you can see, we found a place…though not a good one. This is just an ok moonrise photo. So I’ll still be out there looking for a better location until I get the photo I’m after. One of these months. Everything has to fall into place perfectly to make this work. All it takes is a few clouds on the eastern horizon to make the photo impossible, regardless of the quality of the location. And, please, no comments about how easy it is to just photoshop the moon into a sky. That’s not the point and if you don’t understand the issues with that approach, we don’t really have anything to discuss.
More From The Hocking Hills
August 12th, 2013
Here are some more from the very successful shoot I had with Artistic Physique at the Hocking Hills in southeast Ohio. It’s always a pleasure to work with AP. She’s beautiful and a very talented model. And she’s a friend who I enjoy spending time with. What more could you ask for in a model.
AP is also one of the models featured in my current show at Gallery Provocateur in Chicago. Don’t forget the closing reception for that show on Saturday, September 7. I hope to see you there.
A Little News
August 8th, 2013
There are a couple things going on that I want to let everyone know about. First, the closing reception for my show at Gallery Provocateur in Chicago will be Saturday, September 7. I plan to be there along with several models. I hope you will join us. It’s sure to be a fun evening.
And, in other news, French PHOTO magazine has opened an on-line store where they are offering prints for sale featuring the work of invited photographers. I’m one of the photographers who they invited to be in this store. I’m pleased about this because it will make my work more readily available to collectors in Europe. You can see my page in the store by clicking here.
Moving On To Another Favorite Place
July 27th, 2013
Well, I’m up to the end of last August with my editing now. That brings me to a great shoot with another of my favorite models, Artistic Physique.
We traveled down to southeast Ohio to the Hocking Hills region and some of my favorite beautiful places. As always, AP did a wonderful job and we had good fortune with the light, so it was a good day of shooting. More to come in the next few posts.
Gorgeous Kelsey
July 22nd, 2013
Well, enough of all that legal stuff. Let’s get back to why we think it’s important to protect our right to make constitutionally protected nude photos…otherwise known as free speech.
This will wrap up my photos from this great day of shooting with Kelsey Dylan at a wonderful location near where I grew up in rural Ohio.
By the way, these photos were shot in August 2012. That’s how far behind I am with my editing and posting. That may be a good thing because I’ve not been shooting much lately, what with all the other things going on in my life this year. It looks like I have enough in my backlog to keep the blog supplied for at least a year, so I’m not in danger of running out of photos for a while.
Kelsey is such a wonderful model. I really need to shoot some more work with her.
2257 Lawsuit Update
July 19th, 2013
If you’ve been following my blog for any period of time you already know that I am one of the named plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to have the laws commonly known as 2257 and 2257A declared unconstitutional.
We filed our lawsuit, Free Speech Coalition, et al. v. Holder, in 2009. After much legal maneuvering, we finally had our trial last month.
Yesterday the judge issued his ruling on the lawsuit. As we expected, he was unwilling to declare the laws to be in violation of the constitution. That was really not a surprise. We were a bit surprised that the judge did agree with us on one point, that the unannounced, warrentless inspections of records in homes does violate the protections of the 4th Amendment. That’s some progress.
Of course, this is far from the end of the legal process. Our lawyers are still working on what our next step will be, but it’s fairly certain that yesterday’s ruling will be appealed. It’s quite possible that eventually the Supreme Court will end up making the final decision about this law. That’s no doubt some years away.
My active part is pretty much done now. I went to federal court in Philadelphia last month and said my piece on the witness stand. That’s now part of the record that the lawyers will argue over for years to come.
If you’d like to read the judge’s opinion it is available on the court’s website at this link: http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/13D0604P.pdf
Here’s a news story that gives a fairly comprehensible (if somewhat biased) account of the judge’s ruling:
More Kelsey
July 12th, 2013
Here are some more from my shoot with Kelsey Dylan at my old favorite place from my younger days. This was a great shoot and there is more to come.
Kelsey is a great model and she did an especially fine job on this day of shooting.
I hope to be able to work with Kelsey again soon.
Have a happy July 4
July 4th, 2013
Three Amigos
June 29th, 2013
Just a quick post with a little personal history. I got together with a couple old friends last night. We have been friends for a long time and we stay in touch and see each other regularly. But often there are a bunch of other people with us, which is nice, or it’s just two of us meeting. But last night was kind of special for some unknown reason. It was all three of us and just the three of us. We talked about everything, discussed all the world’s problems and devised solutions for them. We sat outside a burger joint on the north side of Columbus. The weather was perfect. The spot was perfect. The burger joint closed up for the night and we were still there loitering on their outdoor furniture. It was a fine night.
This all started in the 1970s when I bought a house and invited those two to move in and share the place with me. Tim, on the left in the photo, was a photographer for the local daily newspaper…the same job that I had at the start of my career as a photographer. Ken had left his job at an ad agency and started his ultimately very successful commercial photography business while we were all living together. I was working for the government as a photojournalist…a job that actually paid enough that I could buy a house. We called my house the Home for Wayward Photographers. That name stuck and we still refer to ourselves as the Wayward Photographers.
Tim went on to work for the Associated Press in Chicago and New York City. More recently he has been doing freelance photo work. Ken’s business did very well and continues to this day. I’m retired now after a 30+ year career with the government. Life is good.
Here’s a photo that Ken took with a timer in the studio he had set up in the Home for Wayward Photographers back in the days of olde. We really haven’t changed a bit.
