Posts Tagged ‘nude’
The Red Cloth
“So, yeah, the photo that James came up with for the contest was really good. The barbed wire was a great touch. It definitely made it WAY more deviant than Chris’ photo.”
We sat at Opal Divine’s that morning discussing the bet between Chris and James. The aftermath was kind of hilarious. James with a resounding 11-to-1 win over Chris. Especially with all the smack Chris was throwing around.
“But, honestly, I think the photo I did of Morgan wearing the gas mask was definitely more deviant than James’.”
She walked into the game room where we were sitting. “oh! Gas masks?”
My ears perked a moment and I turned around. She was cute. Spritely.
“Yeah. I recently took a photo of a friend wearing this gas mask she picked up.”
“Photos? Are y’all photographers?”
I looked around at the other six guys at the table. “Yeah. We meet up here frequently to talk about photography and stuff.”
“Cool! I love having my picture taken. I could model for y’all sometime!”
Everyone laughed. Sure, why not? I looked back at her and said half-jokingly, “Sure, give me your contact info and we’ll set something up.”
Funny. Some of the guys assumed that was meant for everyone. She laughed, took some of our drink orders and wandered off. We went back to discussing the photos and other random Strobist stuff.
About fifteen minutes later she came back in and walks up to me, a slip of paper in hand. “Here you go!”
It was her contact info. Heh. I turned to look at the guys and saw jaws drop. Yeah. Definitely funny. As I started to slip the paper in my pocket, one exclaimed, “But that’s for all of us!”
“Yeah, sure.” I laughed, “and you’re more than welcome to ask her for the same …”
A few weeks later, we had the shoot set up.
One thing I’ve learned in the last year is that if you don’t have the balls to ask someone for something you’ll never know if they’ll do it. When an opportunity presents itself you’ll do one of two things: take it or sit there kicking yourself for not opening your mouth. Be bold, live notoriously, whatever moniker you want to attach to this idea … all it takes is opening your mouth and asking the question that hangs at the tip of your tongue.
This is Donica. She’s a sweet girl. We had a lot of fun in the studio. This was one of the shots I was explicitly looking for that night. It’s variation of something I picked out of a magazine last year, the main focus being a red cloth sweeping down across the back and just barely hiding a nude woman. We’re definitely going to shoot again, though, next time I think she’ll be in a mohawk. She’s wild like that. Gotta love a woman who’ll let you fuck up her hair for art.
Lighting the Nude
One of the styles of photography that I eventually want to get into is artistic nudes. No, not that skanky Hustler look or that overly lit Playboy style. Something moody, with depth and creativity. This is sort of a lead up into my big goal of doing edgy and risqué stuff … fetish photography and the like.
I’ve been taking baby steps leading up to this. Mostly it’s been learning to light and better understand the light. Then it was beginning to deal with models and getting comfortable with them AND working with the equipment at the same time. I’m still getting used to that. It’s somewhat disconcerting: like juggling flaming pitch, a porcupine, and a running sawzall. Your hands are going everywhere, you’re moving this way and that, you’re jumping forward to adjust something, you’re falling back to do something else. Lots of things to pay attention to.
Well, the next step in this for me is to learn more about the lighting nudes (in general). So, with that idea in mind, I was browsing the bookstore and came across two books on nude photography. The first one didn’t impress me much. I don’t even remember the name at this point. But, the second one, Lighting the Nude, caught my eye. It’s filled with resulting pictures, the lighting diagrams behind the images, and a description of how the shot was taken. This stuff is right up my alley. I can pick apart many photos now, so it’s interesting to see how some of these photos are built up.
The book is 448 pages, and is a collection of about 200 different images from various top photographers. Each chapter covers a different aspect of this style of photography, from props and posing to romantic and fetish. Each photo contains a breakdown of the lighting, positions of modifiers in reference to the model, the camera exposure and film type, as well as a short but concise write up by the photographer. Another thing it has going for it is that every photo I’ve seen in the book is done in a very tasteful way and I’ve gotten quite a few ideas for photographs I’d like to create.
The book is 448 pages, and is a collection of about 200 different images from various top photographers. Each chapter covers a different aspect of this style of photography, from props and posing to romantic and fetish. Each photo contains a breakdown of the lighting, positions of modifiers in reference to the model, the camera exposure and film type, as well as a short but concise write up by the photographer. Another thing it has going for it is that every photo I’ve seen in the book is done in a very tasteful way and I’ve gotten quite a few ideas for photographs I’d like to create.Overall, very well done and recommended (if you can find a copy).