Archive for 2010

Well, another year comes to a close and, along with it, the first decade of the new millennium lies behind us as well. You'll have to wait a thousand years for another 1-1-11 to come along!

Here's wishing all of you the very best for the coming year and the coming decade and, well hell, I'll go for broke wishing that 2011, as well as all your years beyond, are all you hope them to be!

The pretty girl in the pic is Roxy, studio-snapped a while back. Shot her in front of a green seamless. I also clipped a piece of green gel in front of the kicker to the left to kind of connect her, lighting wise, to the background.

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So here we are on December 31 – the final day of the year. It’s been a long one, certainly, with its share of ups and downs. I normally like to finish the year with a post looking over the past 12 months, but with a lot of stuff going on lately – like dealing with snowstorms and working overtime – I just haven’t been able to put together an overview yet.

Instead, I’m going to end the year with something simple: warm thoughts for all of my readers. Thank you all for taking the time to read my ramblings and look at my photos. I hope you enjoy them and will keep coming back.

On a more direct note, there’s another reason for warm thoughts at this time. Here in the northeast and in other parts of the U.S., we’ve been deluged with tons and tons of snow. My last blog post included a photo of a model photographed in Ohio earlier in the year – and last winter – in the snow.

To remind people that all of this cold stuff is temporary and that warm weather will (eventually) return, today I’m posting another photo of a model, Revielle, in Ohio – only this one was made half a year after the last one. Warmth had returned, after all, and there was no snow to be seen anywhere.

So, let’s just deal with the cold as best as we can and wait for warmer days. Just be patient and they’ll get here.

As for my own story, I was able to finally get to work on Wednesday, though I had to take a bus to another subway line as the one near me was still out of service. It’s back to normal now, though.
On the down side, it looks like I won’t be able to use my car for a while. All of the snow that had been on it is gone, but there’s a huge pile of snow directly behind it that’s too big for me to shovel away (and there’s no place to really dump it if I could), so there’s no way that I can back my car out of its parking spot in the lot.

I normally don’t use my car much in the winter, but I’m planning to go over to a friend on Long Island for his holiday party tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to take the railroad there instead.

For now, I wish you all a happy and healthy new year! See you again in 2011.
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As I wrote last time, I'm in the process of switching over my blog to Wordpress, as that blogging site doesn't put up a content warning page for people to get by before seeing my posts. I'll be doing parallel posts for a while until I can get things there finalized, so for now, please take a look at my new post over there and let me know what you think of how it looks. See it at:

http://figuresofgrace.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/warm-thoughts/

Thanks again.

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As the first decade of the new millennium comes to a close, I find myself asking where might it go from here? More importantly, at least to me, is where I might go from here? I'm guessing a few of you might be wondering the same; not about me but about yourselves.

The first decade of the 21st Century saw many changes in the world of photography: some have been exciting, some not so.

While photographic technologies leaped forward in amazing ways, the business of photography was pushed against a wall, certainly from the perspectives of many who ply the trade as their vocation. What digital photography has done for photographers is similar to what instant pudding must have done for those who practiced the fine, culinary art of traditional pudding making. That is, it put making good pictures into the hands of the masses much the way instant pudding put good pudding into the mouths of many more pudding lovers. Some see developments like these as being positive. Others see them from less appreciative perspectives.

Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly love many of photography's technological advances of the last decade. But, at the same time, these advances have made making a living with cameras in my hands much more difficult.

Sure, cream rises to the top. And if cream I be, I'll rise. Perhaps not to the very top but in a generally upward direction. I'm not sure where that rising will take me but, hopefully, somewhere that makes me happy and content.

I don't pretend to have an accurate crystal ball, one that allows me to predict where photography will go in the next decade. Every time I watch an old science fiction movie, movies I'm quite fond of viewing, I'm amused by their (more often than not) inabilities to accurately predict where technology has gone in the last 30 or 40 or 50 years. Sometimes, of course, the writers and producers of those movies saw the future and predicted it with accuracy. Often, they did not.

I do have a wish-list for the future of photography. It's not about cameras and software. Instead, it mostly has to do with consumers of the pictures photographers make. I hope that quality will again trump mediocrity. In other words, I hope those people who hire photographers will raise the quality bar (from where it's been lowered to) and appreciate and embrace the work and results of skillful shutter snappers. I'm not saying that appreciation has completely fallen to the wayside but, in many ways, it's nowhere near where it once was.

Anyway, just some thoughts that popped into my head.

The pretty girl at the top is Rosemary from last night's shoot. Rosemary is Indonesian and, as such, she popped my Indonesian cherry, pretty girl shooting-wise.

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It snowed here in New York City on Sunday – a lot! We got at least 20 inches of snow. I heard on the radio this morning that it was the sixth largest snowfall that the city has ever gotten since record keeping began, which was probably in the late 1800’s.

I couldn’t get into work yesterday. I guess I hadn’t realized how much snow had fallen overnight, so I got up a little earlier than normal, went through my normal pre-breakfast morning routine, and then decided to take a look at my computer. I checked the website of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), and guess what – the subway line that I take into work was out of commission. That line runs in on outdoor, uncovered gulley for the most part, so snow can easily accumulate there. Given enough of it, trains just can’t get through.

I never even left home. I developed three rolls of film from my trip to Japan instead.

Today was a different story. I checked the MTA website when I got up and, unfortunately, my subway line was still out of service. However, another subway line – this one elevated outdoors and close to where I used to live – was back in service but with delays. If I could get to one of its stations, I could get to work, even if I might be late. To get to a station, though, I had to take a bus that stops a couple of blocks from me. I decided to give it a try.

I should never have left home.

Walking toward the bus stop, I saw a bus making a turn as it’s supposed to do at that corner. “Great,” I thought, “the buses are running!” Then when I got closer I saw that the bus had no passengers, but its lights were flashing. Next, I saw the driver slumped against the window, apparently dozing. Then the sign in front reading “Not In Service.”
“What the hell’s going on here?,” I wondered. I walked down to the next stop, where I spoke to some people walking by. One man told me that the bus had been stuck in that spot since the day of the blizzard – two days ago!

I knew then that it would not be good, people saying that they hadn’t seen one bus running this morning. I walked on in the other direction, toward the supermarket where I’d go to get a few things to take home if all else failed. Waiting at the bus stop across the street, I spoke with a man who’d been waiting for about an hour and a half and hadn’t seen a bus. Then another man came by who said that three buses and an ambulance were stuck in the snow further along the buses route, indicating that no bus was likely to get through.
He did make another suggestion: walk several long blocks up to the next main avenue, where I should be able to get a different bus to that one working subway line. “Why not?,” I figured. “I’m out here already, so I might as well give it a try.”

Before I even got to that avenue I heard people along the way saying that no buses were running there, either. Still, on I went on the odd chance that a bus might actually go by. I gave up after about twenty minutes. By that time I'd been looking for a bus for over two hours. No bus seemed likely to go by, and even if it did, there’d be a good chance that I’d have to stand on it (if I could get on at all) and on the subway, too – and my bad foot was already hurting me so much that the prospect of having to stand for a couple of hours more was unthinkable.

So, in the end, ‘twas all for naught. (Well, maybe not all. I did get a gallon of milk on the way home.) What lay in wait tomorrow morning is yet to be seen. All I know now is what the MTA website says: right now, my subway line is still not working, and neither is the bus I need as an alternative. Wish me luck.
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In keeping with the snowy theme, that’s another photo of Goddess Angie and Jypsie Nahmana in the snow during my trip to Ohio in February.
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Finally, I'm thinking of switching my blog over to Wordpress to avoid people being put off by the annoying warning page that people have to deal with here and to publish my photos full size if I so desire.
With that in mind, today I created a blog account at Wordpress and posted this entry over there. It's all very rudimentary now as I need to figure the whole thing out, but please take a look here and let me know what you think:

http://figuresofgrace.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/snowbound-blues/

Thanks.

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I came across the fascinating story of Vivian Maier today. Forget about whatever cameras or other gear were released this past year or the many incredible photographs that were snapped. In my opinion, this is *the* photography story of 2010.

The story is equally fascinating from two perspectives: 1) the photographic life of Ms. Maier and 2) how her work was discovered and what is now being done with it.

Ms. Maier, deceased, was a nanny, a globe-trotter, and an apparently solitary and private person who also took pictures. Thousands and thousands of pictures on the streets of Chicago and elsewhere.

Maier is described by those whom she once cared for (as a nanny) as a Mary Poppins sort of character. What few people seemed to know about her was that she was also a photographer-- a lone photographer who did not seem interested in sharing her work and, in retrospect, who may have been one of the greatest, most gifted (albeit unknown) street photographers of the 20th century!

I know this site is mostly about glamour photography. And glamour photography is what I shoot most. But I'm a photographer first and a glamour photographer second and when I come across an amazing story like this, well I can't help but be inspired, fascinated, and motivated to share it.

Here's a video segment from a Chicago TV program called "Chicago Tonight." I think you'll be as amazed as I was watching it. You can also learn more about the photographer by visiting the Vivian Maier blog.



The gratuitous eye-candy at the top is Dana from last night's shoot. It's certainly not street photography altho the location house where I set up the seamless and my lights and photographed Dana is, after all, on a street.

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According to American painter and photographer, Chuck Close, "Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work."

Close's statement seems to reject the notion that a person (other than the artist himself or herself) or a thing or an activity is what inspires art. It also also seems to reject the divine as the source of inspiration.

If all that is true, where does inspiration come from? Is everything that might (seem to) inspire us already within us, somehow embedded in our psyches? Are we born with the seeds of inspiration already a part of us? Is basic artistic talent another way of explaining off what some might label inspiration? Are we simply waiting for the seeds of inspiration to germinate and bloom? Do we really just need to "get to work" and results that seem "inspired" will follow? Is inspiration something more easily recognized in the past tense? In other words, after creating something that seems "inspired," is it only then that we can recognize something external (from us) that might be responsible for a seemingly "inspired" creation? Or, is inspiration just a vague way of describing how we are or were moved to create something that already resonates in ourselves and then, through the "inspired creation," resonates in others?

Sorry. That was a lot of questions. And I'll bet each one could take a book to answer. If not a book, certainly much could be written in response to each of those questions. In fact, a lot has already been written which addresses those questions and more: It's called "philosophy."

Perhaps what Close meant was that artists (which include photographers) should simply get to work, get busy, get out and do it and, after it's accomplished, then worry or ponder whether whatever was created was inspired or simply happened as result of the effort?

A well-known phrase amongst photographers is the to-the-point adage, "Shut up and shoot." I think it closely resembles what Close was saying.

The pretty girl at the top is Tegan. She definitely inspires me! But more towards ideas and thoughts that are less of an artistic nature and more of a human nature. Just sayin.

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“Now is the solstice of the year,
Winter is the glad song that you hear.
Seven maids move in seven time.
Have the lads up ready in a line.

Ring out these bells.
Ring out, ring solstice bells.
Ring solstice bells.”

- Ian Anderson/Jethro Tull (“Ring Out, Solstice Bells”)

Those words begin one of my favorite songs from the Jethro Tull album “Songs From The Wood.” As the winter solstice took place this week and winter officially began (I know – try telling that to the folks in Minnesota), I thought I’d quote that line to celebrate the season.

What a solstice it was, too! A lunar eclipse, a full moon and the winter solstice all in one day, the likes of which hadn’t happened in over 450 years. I’m sorry that I couldn’t stay up to watch the eclipse around 2:30 a.m. here in New York (having to get up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready for work will do that), but the moon did look spectacular when I saw it the following evening and the morning after that.

So, let us rejoice in the season. Sure, the days may get colder, but the hours of daylight will be getting longer, too, day after day, until day equals night (equal night = "equinox") on the vernal equinox in March and then on to the summer solstice in June.

Winter brings snow, too, and without it, how can photographers create images such as this one here, showing Goddess Angie, bravely sacrificing the warmth of a studio to help create some outdoor art during my trip to Ohio in February of this year. Thanks again, Angie!

(To hear the song by Jethro Tull, click here. Turning on your computer's speakers is highly recommended.)

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A friend sent me a link to a thread on Model Mayhem which in turn led to an interesting link that featured some photos with mark-ups for retouching. (For a few Playboy centerfold pics.)

In that thread, well-known glamour and fetish photographer, Ken Marcus, commented about his days shooting for Playboy. In his comment, Ken said, "During the 11 years (1974 - 1985) that I shot centerfolds, calendars, pictorials and editorials for Playboy, there was a policy against retouching anything except the cover (to make sure text would contrast properly and be easily readable) Our policy during those days was: Pre-touch, rather than Re-touch."

Ken's words got me to thinking about the current state of glamour photography (in the digital age) and it's seeming dependence on post-production tools for making, leastwise hoping to make, impressive images. Often enough, heavily processed and re-touch-driven images either go beyond my ability to suspend disbelief or they simply suck as a result of the excessive and ridiculous amounts of processing and re-touching some photographers apply to their work.

I've probably beaten this subject to death in the past but nothing in the present has changed my opinion in terms of re-touching-- That is, that less is often more.

What I mean by "less is more" has less to do with the time and effort spent re-touching images and more to do with its obviousness.

When I was an editor (I'm talking video editor) one of the important things I learned about editing, be it film or video, was that the best editing is invisible. In other words, great editing doesn't call attention to itself: Cuts and dissolves and other edits all flow naturally, seamlessly, and invisibly. That's why motion picture editing is often referred to as "the soul" of a motion picture. It's there but viewer's aren't overly aware it's there.

In more than a few ways, I think re-touching photographic images is best accomplished when the re-touching is nearly invisible, calls little attention to itself, and seems natural. There are exceptions, of course. But those exceptions, in my opinion, generally refer to images that are as much digital art, perhaps more so, than they are photographs.

In order to produce photographs of high-caliber, the emphasis should be, as Ken Marcus mentioned, on pre-touch rather than re-touch. What that means is photographers should be learning all they can about the front-end of photography and doing everything they can, while in production, to reduce their reliance on re-touching to improve the quality of their photos.

In other words, pre-touch rather than re-touch.

Henri Carier-Bresson said, "The picture is good or not from the moment it was caught in the camera." That simple statement holds much truth!

Cartier-Bresson also said, "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." So, with that in mind, be patient. Keep working at improving you production skills. It doesn't happen overnight but, if you keep at it, it will happen. When it does, I think you'll find that pre-touch will trump re-touch in terms of producing good photos, glamour or otherwise.

The pretty girl at the top is Alexis from a shoot last night. I had about 15 minutes with Alexis and spent less than 5 minutes re-touching the above image. Could I have done more? Re-touching that is? Sure. Would the image be vastly improved? I'm not so sure. Improved, yes. Vastly improved? I don't know. Sometimes, things like re-touching (photographically) adheres to the law of diminishing returns.

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Martina TasevskaMartina Tasevska

Born: 01.01.1985
Place: Skopje
Height: 175 cm
Weight: 52 kg
Bust: 82 cm
Waist: 62 cm
Hips: 86 cm
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown






Martina Tasevska is a Macedonian model who lives and works as a model in Miami for a 4 years. She works with couple of modeling agencies in Miami and LA and do a lot of runway shows and had the pleasure to walk for Chloe, Lanvin, Carolina Brazil, Poco Pano and many other local and international designers.Martina Tasevska












Martina Tasevska - Swimwear Editorial by Photographer Chris Knight
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When I'm shooting for clients, I have to decide how stylistic my images should be or can be or might be. Another way to look at it is this: I decide what stylistic elements I might get away with, that is, sneaking them into my shooting approach, and I do so at my own risk.

Most of my clients aren't exactly art aficionados. They want to see pics of their models posed in sexy, seductive ways, well-lit and properly exposed. ("Well-lit" being entirely subjective from many points-of-view.)

My clients generally rely on their post-prod people to either add stylized elements to the photos or not. If I begin stylizing my photos to a noticeable degree, they might love them or hate them. Regardless, they prefer them not being too stylized. If I do add much in the way of style, I better do so in ways that allow their post-prod people to undo my efforts and return the images to un-stylized levels should that be how they want them. (And that ain't an easy thing to do.) I often feel like I'm teetering on a balance beam between infusing a personal style into the pics or shooting them in more generic ways.

Generally, my clients aren't big fans of shadows or too much contrast. Not all shadows and contrast: A modicum of shadow and contrast is okay. But too much emphasis on shadow and contrast and they're liable to freak out... unless they really love the images, shadows/contrast notwithstanding.

For example, if I want to add a fair amount of personal style, and if that personal style might include a fair amount of shadow and contrast, I risk my clients being unhappy with my work unless, of course, they happen to like what I captured with a specific model.... stylistically, that is.

Shooting brightly-lit models, near-shadow-and-contrast-free, is always the safe way to go. There's less for clients to dislike. In fact, if they don't like the flat, brightly-lit images, their dislike usually has more to do with liking or not liking the model than it has to do with liking or not-liking how I captured the model. And since they're the ones who hired the model, I'm generally off the hook, liking the pictures-wise.

On one hand, shooting safe might be a somewhat good idea from of a client-relations perspective but, on the other hand, it risks me, the photographer, becoming more replaceable in their eyes. In other words, practically anyone with a fair amount of photography experience can light up a model brightly and with little contrast, producing competent, if lackluster, images. Because of that, there's less impetus to hire me again simply because so many other photographers can easily produce the same (near-style-free) results. It's like a glamour photography Catch 22.

For those not familiar with Joseph Heller's novel, "Catch 22," think of it as being dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.

Anyway. Just sayin.

The pretty girl at the top is from last night's shoot. It's almost like she's doing a one-handed juggling act with her breasts, giving them an unusual lop-sided appearance. (Which their normally not... lopsided, that is.) Her name is Yurizan. (First time I've ever heard that name, Yurizan being her real name I should add.) For this gig, which is an ongoing gig, the models are all shot in front of a seamless. I usually have about 20 minutes with them. I went with a bit more shadow and contrast with Yurizan, adding some small amount of style to the images. We'll see what the client has to say after they see the pics.

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Hi again, everyone.

Yes, I know. I haven’t posted anything for a while. I had actually planned to make a posting this past weekend titled “A Busy Week,” but unfortunately some more problems cropped up with my new computer and I’ve had to spend several hours on the phone with tech support people in India, the Philippines and – would you believe it? – the United States (!) trying to get the problems sorted out.

As of now, they are still not all worked out, but they are to the extent that I can take a few days off from conversing with people on the other side of the world. More on this later.

The action began a couple of weeks ago when I made a weekend trip to Las Vegas to visit family. As has become the norm for a Vegas visit, I got together with my good friend Terrell “Big T” Neasley for breakfast on Saturday morning. After I downed my pancakes and he finished his eggs benedict, we drove on over to a camera store where Terrell and some of his buddies like to hang out on Saturday mornings. That’s a photo of Big T in the store at the top.

I returned to New York on Monday, December 6, but as it was a late afternoon departure from Las Vegas, my plane didn’t get into JFK until around 12:45 a.m., I didn’t get home until around 2:00 and I didn’t get to bed until around 3:00. If that weren’t bad enough, it was up at 5:30 a.m. to head into work as usual.

There wasn’t much time to rest after work, either, as that Tuesday evening was the annual benefit photo auction for Friends Without a Border, which I wrote about last time. This is always a nice event to attend, helping to raise money for a childrens’ hospital in Cambodia. The difference this year was that one of my own photos was being auctioned off, so I was happy to contribute in another way.

So how did my photo do? Well, it sold for $200 to a woman who told me that she really liked it a great deal, but quite honestly I was hoping that it would go for a bit more. Still, $200 can buy a lot of medicine to help the needy, so I am happy that it sold for what it did. Hopefully I’ll be able to contribute another print next year.

Here are some photos from the event.

Some of the volunteers






That's my photo at the top. Note that somebody had placed a bid and then crossed it out!




My friend Omar


The gorgeous photo by Lillian Bassman that I wish I could have afforded


Yours truly with the buyer of my photo

At the end of last week, on Friday, I decided to go after work to the holiday party being held at the New York Academy of Art in TriBeCa. I wanted to get some dinner first, so I used it as an opportunity to finally eat at a place called the Square Diner (even though it’s on a roughly triangular shaped piece of land) a couple of blocks from the school. There are plenty of diners in New York, but I've wanted to try this one as it seems to be one of the few railroad car style diners left in the city, so it was an interesting visit. (The food was decent, too.)

Here are a few photos.





After dinner it was off to the art school, where the event was held in the main gallery on the ground floor. The walls were covered with small, relatively inexpensive artworks for sale to benefit the school, and there were a lot of wonderful paintings, prints and drawings. Among the people I met and spoke with were John Cichowski, who runs the school’s continuing education department (perhaps I’ll sign up for a figure drawing class one day when I have time) and an art student named Lisa Benson, whose website can be seen here and blog here.

There was art being created, too, as several artists were making drawings and paintings of the models who occupied the center of the room – several young guys covered in a glittery covering, wearing nothing but white undershorts and white angel wings. (It would be great if they could have some female angels dressed that way next year, but somehow I don’t think that will happen!)

Again, some photos.


Art for sale

A gorgeous mezzotint


Another interesting print


John Cichowski








Nudes can be nice, too!







Lisa Benson



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As to my computer problems, where shall I begin??? Come to think of it, I’ve probably posted enough for one day, so I’ll hold off until my next post to deal with that. Perhaps I’ll even be able to get something resolved between now and then.

Before I end, though, here’s a You Tube link that every American citizen should watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7q5F2u1I_Q&feature=related

Stay tuned and stay warm.

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Hi. My name is Jimmy and I'm a blur-a-holic. It's been 3 years since I used a total face or body Gaussian blur mask.

Sometimes it's hard. I look at my pictures and think, it's only going on the web. At 72 dpi, whose gonna notice? Besides, the women I photograph don't all have porcelain skin. What's a little virtual porcelain between friends? There's a reason Mattel has been so successful with their line of Barbie dolls. If people didn't like plasticized Barbie skin they would have already stopped appreciating (and buying) those dolls and Mattel would have already changed their manufacturing process and added pores to Barbie's skin, right?

Okay, I'll admit that sometimes... sometimes I might use a blurring tool on a pretty girl's skin. But only a tiny little bit and only in a few places. It's barely noticeable, if at all. What's the harm in that, right? It's glamour. It's all about fantasy. If a little blurred skin helps create the fantasy, what's wrong with that? It's not like anyone is getting hurt if I do. As long as her eyes are sharp and focused, right?

Besides, I don't always have time to carefully and meticulously "heal" every freakin' blemish on every model's skin. Dammit, Jim! I'm a professional photographer, not a plastic surgeon! Most of my models don't have sick skin anyway. They might have an occasional blemish, scar, pimple or other flaw, things that could use a bit of post-production TLC but, for the most part, there's usually not *that* much to heal. She is what she is!

A model's epidermis is her largest organ. Okay, maybe a few of my models have mammary glands larger than their epidermises but that doesn't mean their entire skin organ is in trouble. If the whole damn thing needs healing, her skin I mean, maybe she needs a doctor? You know, a dermatologist. Maybe she should take better care of her epidermis? Maybe she shouldn't even be modeling or I shouldn't be showcasing my pictures of her.

The model at the top is Bella from last night's shoot. No model was injured in the production of this photo. No post-production blur was used in the processing of the picture. (Not even a tiny bit.)

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Biz-a-ness first. Ed Verosky has a "limited time" holiday sale going on for all his ebooks. Use discount code N5H74 at checkout and instantly receive 30% off. I have all Ed's books featured in the right-hand column of this page. Click any of them to purchase. Use your discount code and receive 30% off! Or, click on any from these links:

Taking Your Portraiture to the Next Level,

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1
0 Ways to Improve Your Boudoir Photography Now,

25 Amazing Boudoir Photography Techniques.

I have two projects I'm currently working on. One of them is all writing and the other is writing and shooting. I'll probably begin shooting for project #2 right after Christmas. As you might imagine, having two simultaneous projects is taking up a fair amount of my time. But hey! Business sucks. (In terms of being a "gun-for-hire") so I've got the time. Might as well spend it doing something productive, right?. In this case, doing two things at the same time that are productive.

I've been giving a lot of thought to expanding my photographic horizons and pursuing work other than glamour and tease. It's not that I don't love shooting beautiful, sexy women. I do! But there's less and less work coming my way so, beyond my personal projects, it's probably time to branch out. I mean to seriously look to branch out!

Course, I have no freakin' clue in which direction I might move. It's definitely not going to be things like weddings, family and event photography and that sort of stuff. I still shoot headshots as part of my quest to continue making a living with cameras in my hands. And I still get hired to hold a video camera. In fact, Next week I'm scheduled to shoot some web-commercials for a new dog-training device that will soon be marketed to consumers.

Still, my passion is photography and, beyond the decreasing glam work, the headshots, the video shooting, I think I need to figure out where, as a photographer, I want to direct myself. Suggestions, as always, are welcome even though it's unlikely anyone will suggest an area I haven't already thought about.

I would love, of course, to be shooting simply for myself. But I wasn't exactly Mister Fiscally Responsible for most of my life so I still need to earn. That's not a complaint, by the way. I'm ready, willing, able, and enthusiastic to continue pursuing a career. Authoring and selling ebooks has been great. I've done quite well with that so far. It's not enough, however, to support myself. Even with the shooting gigs I'm still getting there's not enough to comfortably live. I'm definitely at that age where comfort is important. That's why I'm looking outside my own, little, comfort box, hoping to expand to a bigger, wider, taller comfort box, if you will.

That's Tera Patrick up top in some very Xmas-ee lingerie. (Obviously, more "X" than "mas")

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Suzana Al SalkiniSuzana Al Salkini










Suzana Al SalkiniSuzana Al Salkini










Suzana Al SalkiniSuzana Al Salkini










Suzana Al Salkini














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Photographers are often going on about the story in a photo. You know, the editorializing the photographer engaged in when creating the pic. But if you step back and look at a photographer's work from a distance, as a body of work, does it say something, perhaps a lot, about the person with the camera in his or her hand?

Generally, I divide photographers into two, overall categories: Those who observe and document and those who observe, document, and express. That's not to say there's not an abundance of gray between my general binary perceptions of photographers, often there is, but sometimes it helps to categorize and generalize for the purposes of sharing personal observations.

Photographers who observe and document seem less interested in style. That's not to say some amount of style doesn't exist in their photos but, for the most part, they seem less interested in expressing style than they are in documenting an event or a thing. Photo-journalists often fall into this category as do those who shoot nature. Certainly, all photo-journalists and nature shooters aren't merely style-free documentarians but many of them seem to be.

Photographers who observe, document, and express are looking to share something beyond documentation. They're as interested, if not more interested, in developing a personal style or using stylistic elements or points-of-view that add expressive nuance to whatever it is they're photographically documenting. In this way, they are often saying something about themselves as much as they are saying something about what's in front of them.

When viewing a photographer's portfolio, the first thing I notice is if there's an overall theme to the photographer's images, a common denominator. It doesn't matter what genre the photographer mostly shoots although a photographer's preferred genre might also be revealing in terms of who the photographer is and what he or she might be about. At the very least, it poses questions about the photographer-- Questions that might, themselves, be revealing.

Is someone who prefers to shoot landscapes or still life images also someone who is less of an intimate, social, or people person? Edward Weston photographically bonded with peppers. What does this say about Edward Weston? Was he more an observer than a participator? How do you participate with peppers beyond growing them or eating them? Weston found a way.

These sorts of questions are the kind of stuff that has always made, and continues making, photography so fascinating to me. Not just as a photographer but as a viewer as well.

I know I'm generalizing but sometimes generalizing allows us to discover truth. That's probably why truth is so often described in general, universally-applied and non-specific terms.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. - Oscar Wilde.

Or to bring it home to the art and craft of photography, leastwise a specific genre of photography: It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist who does commissions for clients because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there’s nothing left of truth. - Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Cartier-Bresson, recognized as the father of modern-day photo-journalism, certainly included much expressive style in his work. Yet, in the quote above he (in a sense)
takes style to task, complaining that it obscures the truth. A very complex man, Henri must have been.

But Henri's right: Style obscures the truth! (Not that that's necessarily always a bad thing, certainly not in the world of photography.)

My apologies if I seem like I'm rambling on, writing in an eclectic style, searching for a point to make. But then, a photographer's life is rather eclectic. One of constantly being on the look-out, in search of, a point to make with each photograph we snap. Sometimes those points are obvious, sometimes they're subtle, sometimes they indicate what we're searching for even if whatever that thing is remains elusive and undiscovered.

It is exciting, of course, when we discover what we're looking for and artfully make our points: Points that hope to tell some truth even if that truth might be shaded (with expressiveness and personal style) in ways that obscures other truths. At the same time, obscuring truth with expression and style reflects something about ourselves. In other words, through photography, and beyond the techniques we use to snap our subjects, we also capture some truths about our attitudes and perceptions about whatever is in front of us.

Other times, of course, we simply make seemingly pointless photographs of whatever we momentarily deem "interesting" or, perhaps, are commissioned to shoot. I suppose that says something about us as well. What, I'm not sure.

The gratuitous eye-candy at the top is Aleta. Does the pic say something about me? Perhaps that I'm a gratuitous eye-candy kinda guy? Regardless, the pic was captured with my Canon 5D and a Canon 17-40 f/4L. I used a wide-angle lens to slightly distort the perspective. I suppose that was my way of further distorting the truth about who this model might be. You know, to further help the model's pose and expression and wardrobe (or lack of it) remove, as Cartier-Bresson said, some truth about her. (Although removing the truth about how sexy Aleta is would be fairly difficult.) Two lights were employed: Mainlight modified with a 5' Photoflex Octodome and a back/side light modified with a small, shoot-thru, umbrella. ISO 100, f/8 @ 125.





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Edward Weston once said, "Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk."

Point well taken.

Composition, good composition, is one of those things that, for serious photographers, should become instinctive and automatic: You know, like one foot in front of another without, prior to walking, feeling the need to brush up on Isaac Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation
.

Although we don't need to learn the laws of gravity in order to walk, it's a pretty good idea to know something of the rules of composition -- what works and what doesn't work -- in order to, at some point, become photographers who naturally, instinctively, and automatically apply the rules of composition (or break those rules) in effective ways.

In both my ebooks, Guerrilla Glamour and Guerrilla Headshots, I wrote a fair amount about composition. While going on about the various elements of composition, I placed special emphasis on diagonal lines. Not simply because I tend to incorporate diagonal lines in my images whenever I can, but because diagonal lines are, in a word, powerful. Make that, visually powerful.

The power of diagonal lines can be obvious or subtle. Regardless, they add much value to almost any photograph-- whether they're applied to genres as diverse as architectural photography and glamour photography or even, when they can be, employed when snapping headshots.

In glamour photography, backgrounds, shooting environments, wardrobe and accessories aside, diagonal lines can be produced by pose. People have arms and legs. Those arms and legs, in their most basic state, represent lines. The lines represented by arms and legs can be directed to create diagonal lines within the vertical and horizontal rectangular dimensions of your viewfinder. Those diagonal lines help lead the viewer's eyes to where you want them to go. In fact, they nearly force the viewer's eyes in certain directions. That's why diagonal lines are such powerful constructs to apply to your photos.

Getting back to Edward Weston's quote, calling on the rules of composition (diagonal lines included) doesn't need to be something that is consciously considered. In fact, the more instinctive and second nature it becomes, the more it seems a natural element of the image rather than something that is forced or obviously intentional. (That's not to say forcing compositional elements or having them appear intentional can't be done to great effect.)

How do employing compositional techniques like diagonal lines become automatic? Well, the same way, as babies, we learn to walk. At first, our minds and bodies are carefully, purposefully, and cautiously taking steps. Soon, those steps become more fluid and natural. Finally, walking becomes near thoughtless and automatic. The same chronology applies to employing effective composition. After some time of consciously and purposefully framing your pictures with nods to various compositional techniques, you will eventually begin automatically framing your images and directing your models in ways that reflect those "rules" of composition without even thinking about them.

The pretty girl at the top is another of Faye. (I used a Faye pic in my previous update, "Focus.") This image of Faye, unlike the previous, is a one-light shot using a 300WS monolight in front, modified with a shoot-thru umbrella. Faye has posed her body in a standard, "S-Curve," glamour pose. There are a number of diagonal lines represented in the image. They all work to add visual value to the photo. The diagonals formed by her arms lead the viewers' eyes to her very pretty, freckled face.

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Sorry for the delay in writing, everyone. I'm afraid that things have piled up around here so I've been busy trying to get out from under. There was also a death in my family recently that has required me to divert much of my attention to family matters.

Today's entry is a quickie, but an important one. Next Tuesday, December 7, Friends Without a Border will hold its annual photography auction in New York. The proceeds go to support a hospital for children in Siem Reap, near the famous ruins of Angkor, in Cambodia. This is a cause I have supported over the years by purchasing a number of photos from the auction, and I'm pleased to announce that one of my own photographs will be auctioned this year as part of the fundraiser.

My photo included is the one shown here, "Archer in Competition, Nikko, Japan, 2005." This photo was also on the cover of the first volume of books published by the f-eleven group, and the purchase of my photo also includes a copy of that book, too.

To find out more about the auction and to register to bid, please click here. This is a very worthy cause and I hope readers will consider contributing. My photo can be seen here, in the fourth row, second from the right.

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Manipulating focus is a great way to force your viewers' eyes where you want them to go. D'uh, right?

Yet, I see so many glamour images that could have been greatly improved with a bit of focus manipulation when the photographer was shooting. I know, I know... it's a creative decision and those photographers chose not to use depth of focus as one of their creative tools for that shot.

Sorry, I don't buy that. I don't think all of those photographers much considered how they might exploit focus to enhance their images. I'm guessing many of them decided to shoot at small apertures because they were thinking more about keeping their models in sharp focus. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff in their backgrounds was kept in nearly as sharp focus. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, it's the right thing to do. Other times, it keeps the photo in the realm of mediocrity.

For glamour photography, make that for the majority of people photography, sharp focus on the models or subjects is often important. (Unless you're going for a fuzzy, soft-focus, artsy look.) Usually, the sharpest focus should be on the model's eyes. (D'uh again.) We sure don't want blurry glimpses through those windows to the soul even if the models' souls aren't what many viewers of glamour images are gawking at.

Personally, it's rare for me to shoot a model above f/8 unless I'm purposely looking for more depth of focus... which isn't that often. I mostly prefer in and around f/5.6, plus or minus a stop, and, occasionally, wider than that. The more open the aperture, of course, the shallower the focus. The closer my framing, the more I generally prefer a shallower focus.

Just because your powerful strobes can deliver plenty of lighting power, allowing you to shoot at very stopped-down apertures, doesn't mean you should always be using that power. The most powerful monolight I own delivers a mere 500WS of power and I rarely have used that strobe at full capacity. In fact, the strobe itself gets used less than my 300WS strobes because I can't dial it down enough while keeping it in close to my models and still achieving very soft lighting. (Which most of my clients prefer when I'm shooting glamour and tease for them.)

Just some Hump Day tidbits for thought regarding the role of focus in glamour shooting.

The pretty girl at the top is Faye. I used two lights: A 300WS main light in front modified with a small, shoot-thru umbrella and a 300WS bare-bulb strobe from behind for highlights. For glass, I was using a Canon 85mm f/1.8 prime. Exposure was ISO 100, f/2.5 with a 200th of a second shutter. Mark Twain might have been talking about Faye when he said, "A face without freckles is like the sky without stars."

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The late cinematographer Conrad Hall (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Road to Perdition, and more) once said, "Contrast is what makes photography interesting."

The word, "contrast," in its simplest definition, refers to things set in opposition in order to show or emphasize their differences.

Beyond differences in levels of brightness between the light and dark areas of a photo, there are other ways contrast can be depicted in the content of a photograph: colors, forms, and lines can be contrasted as can dissimilarities between entities or objects.

I'm not 100% sure which aspect of contrast Hall was specifically referring to-- Perhaps all of them? It's likely, given he was a cinematographer, he was mostly speaking about the differences between the light and dark areas of photographic images. It doesn't matter if the photographic images are motion pictures or still photographs. Contrast is contrast.

Sometimes, when there's less difference (contrast) between the light and dark areas of a photo, the image may appear overly gray and dull. (Generally, not a good thing.) Other times, reduced contrast, in the form of high-key lighting, can be visually effective and help send specific messages to viewers.

How light and dark areas of photos are contrasted appeals to the emotions of viewers. When high-key lighting is employed and the contrast is purposely reduced, much of the image's light values reside on the bright (or white) side of the exposure. As a result, the subjects are often perceived as having light, airy, or upbeat emotional values. In contrast, low-key lighting, where much of the image's light values reside on the dark (or black) side of the exposure, produces more immediately obvious differences between the light and dark areas of an image and are often perceived as being dramatic, shadowy, or mysterious.

Another element (or product) of contrast is focus. The areas of a photo where the contrast is most reduced results in those areas having, what appears to be, softer focus. Conversely, the greater the difference between light and dark in immediately adjoining areas of a photo, the sharper the focus appears. When you use Photoshop's sharpening tools, for instance, the focus isn't actually sharpened or increased. Instead, the contrast between adjoining light and dark pixels are increased. This provides the illusion the image is in sharper focus. With many genres of photography, illusion is as important as reality.

In glamour photography, illusion and fantasy are more important than reality. When you're pretty girl shooting, using contrast in various ways is another way to help you and your model create the fantasy.

The low-contrast, high-key, pretty girl at the top is Rebecca. I used a 5' Photoflex Octodome as a main light and let the large, overhead skylight, as well as the white walls, provide the rest of my exposure.

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I received the new issue of B&W magazine in the mail a few days ago. This is the Single Image Contest issue that includes one of my photos, “Nude, Prince Edward Island, 2006,” that won a Bronze Award. My photo is on page 51 and can be seen above. You can see the cover below.

The issue, #80, is also available now in bookstores and on newsstands for those of you who may want to purchase a copy or just take a look.

That’s the good news. Now the bad: my photo was placed in the wrong category. The image was created as an in-camera double exposure on film, but it won third prize in the category called Digital Conceptualization. That’s right: digital! I work hard to use film and make prints in a darkroom, and pride myself on the fact that I don’t do digital, but now people will see my photo and think that it was something that I doctored up in the computer, rather than being a product of creative vision on location. That’s a real disappointment for me.

So, I wrote the following message to the magazine’s staff yesterday morning:

“Dear B&W:

I recently received my copy of issue #80, the special Single Image Contest Awards issue. As you had notified me, one of my photographs was given a Bronze Award (on page 51), and I want to thank you again for selecting my image out of the many that were submitted. I feel honored.

However, I am also writing to inform you of my great disappointment in seeing that my photo was placed in the wrong category, Digital Conceptualization. While I agree that the image is conceptual in nature, it is definitely not digital. Rather, it was made as an in-camera double exposure – something that I conceived in my mind with forethought while on location and not something that I assembled on a computer screen afterwards.

Actually, I take pride in the fact that I still use film which I develop myself and that I still make silver prints in a darkroom. The only digital work I do is to make straight scans from negatives to post on the web and to submit to competitions and publications such as yours. It is therefore quite upsetting that readers of B&W will see my photo and think that the image was something that was doctored up in a computer, which is something I would never do.

What is perhaps even more unsettling is that someone would simply assume that a photographic image is the result of digital computer manipulation without considering the alternatives or even trying to find out. Is this what photography has come to? When a fine publication such as B&W does so, it’s even worse.

You say in the contest prospectus that it makes no difference if an image was made via film or digital capture. If that is so, why only have a category for Digital Conceptualization? Why not have one for Analog (Film) Conceptualization as well? Think of the fine work that Jerry Uelsmann has done over the years using film and multiple enlargers. Think of the photographs that have been created in a darkroom using sandwiched negatives. Think of the work such as mine that were done as multiple exposures in the camera. All of these are conceptual in nature, yet none of them fall into the category of Digital Conceptualization. Is it fair that they should be excluded or wrongly labeled?

Perhaps a better solution is this: create a category that is simply called “Conceptual.” This way, it would encompass everything. Of course, people might still look at a film image and believe it was done digitally, but I much prefer that ambiguity to having somebody told outright that a photograph is the result of digital manipulation when in fact it is not.

Again, I want to tell you how pleased I am that my image was given a Bronze Award and I thank you for doing so. I just believe that your way of categorizing images could be improved and I hope you will consider what I have written. “

I wasn’t sure if I would get a response, but in fact I got two. One was from the staff of the magazine that handles the competition, and they thanked me for writing and for making suggestions for change. They wrote that they have also been thinking about the same things.

The other response was a phone call from Henry Rasmussen, the original publisher and editor of B&W magazine and now the person in charge of judging the magazine’s competitions. He left a message while I was out yesterday, but I called him back today and we had a nice discussion on the topic.

He apologized for the error and admitted that he could have been more diligent in determining the method by which my photo was made. As a film and darkroom user, I told him of my belief that for any category that is reserved for digital only, there should be one just for film users, too.

In the end, he told me that changes should be made that will hopefully prevent this type of error from happening again, so although I’m disappointed that my photo was put in the wrong category this time, I can at least have some satisfaction in knowing that I’ve helped to correct things for the future. As with my photo being selected for an award and getting published, I am happy about that.

(Now if only the producers of “Dancing With the Stars” will listen to my suggestions and come up with a system that will prevent someone like Bristol Palin from ever making it to the finals again. Until they do, I am not planning to watch.)

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