Some More Recent Images

Audi in the Willow

Kira - Anticipation 

Megan - Communion with Nature

From Some Recent Shoots

Here's my latest model, Mollie, in her first shoot with me out at Dragonfly Landing. This is just a quick shot at random and a quick edit while the rest of her images were downloading:

Mollie at the Arsenal

This is from a fun shoot with Alija. She wanted to be an urban guerilla and I envision her as a punk soldier. Whatever you call her character here, it's definitely a fun image:

Alija the Punk Soldier

Finally, here's a glamorous shot of Kira, finishing the third shoot in the series of chain shoots I'm doing with several models. 

Kira at the Window

Sivonna and the Tree

Just finished processing this as a follow-up to a post on one of the forums in which I participate.

Sivonna at Dragonfly Landing

Bright Colors

Sometimes you just go with the flow. My most recent model, a lovely young lady with theater experience, is also fond of flamboyant hair colors. In fact, she dyed her hair specifically for this shoot and let me know ahead of time that it would be bright. Since I make a point of encouraging models to show their personality and inner beauty, this was fine with me.

Since we were shooting in the studio, I deliberately chose to shoot with a black background so the models colors would pop and not blend into the background. Except for the simple nude you see below, the chains and weapons were also chosen to be complement the bright, bold look and I dug up a prop to use which went well with the entire look.

I used a standard three light set-up - key was a large octobox, fill as a large softbox set 1 stop below key, and the rim/hair light was a small softbox set to equal key.  We also worked with some more subdued and moody lighting, but I actually prefer the brighter shots.

Megan, the model, enjoyed shooting and so far has liked the way the images have been processed. She's already looking forward to her next shoot with me and has made me promise to shoot again with her in the very near future. She really wants to be part of my Fae in Us All series and I'm more than willing to accomodate that request. So, I'm sure you'll be seeing more of her here in the future. In the meantime, here's a simpler shot of this lovely model.

Muscles and Shadows

Audi came back to town last week and gave me a call to see if she could take a look at some of the photos we shot in the studio in February. Of course, I was delighted to show them to her and to get her feedback as the model during the shoot. Since I was headed out for lunch that day anyway, we just met at a local coffee shop and we went through the images on my laptop.

In general, Audi liked all of the images and the theme. Of course, she had the occasional comments such as "I don't like my expression in that one," or "that pose makes my legs look too short." She was critiquing her own posing abilities and trying to learn more about herself from the shoot.

During the shoot, I was having trouble with the wireless synch trigger on my key light. For a while it was firing about only every other shot. I eventually fixed it by moving the trigger to the fill light and letting the key synch off the optical slave, but before I did that, there were a number of shots where the background and fill lights didn't fire and the image was exposed using only the key light (which was a large softbox). I kept them because I felt the looked very good and set a different tone and mood for the images. Audi felt the same way, because she picked several of these shots as her keepers.

As you can see from the posted images, the large key light kept the illumination soft, but also gave us some deep shadows while the angle of the light help to emphasize the muscles tone of the model's body. That's what Audi liked about the photos, and I have to agree that the lighting here adds more dimension to the model's body, if not to the entire image.

So, during my next shoot, I'm going to experiment more with the lights and go for a more moody look in some of the images as a deliberate action rather than as a serendipitous result of a lighting misfire.

I'll be shooting at least one session next week, so I'll have an upcoming opportunity to try this with a new model, Sivonna. She's a painter and art student so I'm sure she'll have some ideas on how to set the lighting and I'm looking forward to that collaborative photo session.

Women in Chains - The Latest Shoot

I had the pleasure of working with Audi and Holli this past Sunday. That was my first time working Audi and my first studio shoot with Holli. I had done a test shoot with Holli in Cathedral Park last summer in preparation for a studio shoot in the fall, but that shoot fell through at the last minute and we didn't reconnect until earlier this year.

Both models were shot for my Women in Chains project, but as you can see, I also threw in some swords as well for my Sword & Sorcery project. I shot for about 4 hours with Audi and for almost two and half hours with Holli using various chain outfits, weapons, and colored backdrops.

Audi was especially fun to work with and quite photogenic. She has studied dance for a number of years and the grace and poise of a dancer, as well as the expressions of an actress. She was both adept and innovative with her poses and managed to convey the various concepts I wanted her to portray. I'm looking forward to working with her again this year for some outdoor glamour shoots.

Holli came to the studio later in the day and we had less time to shoot together, but we still managed to get quite a few great images. Holli has modeled longer than Audi and I had at least had the advantage of doing a test shoot with her, so I had some feel for how she could pose and express herself.

The poses for Holli, I kept less elaborate and designed more to show the curves of her body. Like most models I've worked with so far, she was especially delighted with the various chain jewelry I had her wear for the shoot.

As with Audi, we also shot with a couple of different swords, but I don't think Holli was a comfortable posing with them as Audi. Holli did enjoy herself though, I know, because she called me today wanting to shoot again soon, and to include a friend. I'm sure we'll be able to work something out in the near future.

Here's another shot of Audi and you can expect to more of both Holli and Audi in future posts.

Changing Things Up a Bit

I've decided to separate my blogs into more appropriately divided journals. This journal is devoted more specifically to my glamour and nude photography and linked to my Provocative Photo website. I've also designated this blog site as an adults only site so that anyone who visits gets a warning that what they are about to see isn't appropriate for work or for young eyes (or at least not young eyes with no parental guidance).

Splitting the blogs also allows me to be more flexible with what I post by allowing project based posts as opposed to the chronologically based posts system I was following before.  As part of splitting the blogs, I did extract the pertinent glamour and nude posts to transfer to this journal to maintain the continuity of the writings. There may be some odd holes here and there in the stream of posts, but there's nothing anyone will miss from series of posts about glamour photography.

The image to the right is the lovely Ashley posing with sword and chains in my backyard. The image was taken with the Canon EF 135mm f/2.8 SF lens with the soft focus setting set to 2. As you can see, it provide a dreamy effect straight out of the camera. Some have argued that the effect could be achieved in Photoshop as well, but I don't think the dimensionality of the effect can be achieved directly with software. That's why I keep the 135mm SF lens in my lens bag even though I also have the 135 f/2L which is probably my favorite prime lens.

This shot was taken as part of my Women in Chains project. Ashley posed in several different sets of chains and in a few settings and at one point we decided to go out into the back yard for a few shots, and that was when we decided to use the sword with the chains.  I've subsequently started a different project featuring both the chains and various swords. I've shot the first set of those images (see Vanessa in the post below for one example and Ashley G. at the bottom of the page for another).

To the left, you can see this Ashley in an Ice-Flame body chain and headdress in Dark Flame. This is one of several different sets of chains I've been using in my recent photography projects. In the image above, she's in a set of chains called the Raven Ensemble.

I've got a few more images of Ashley to process later this winter, but for now I'm concentrating on completing the Sword and Sorcery images shot in November. When the warmer months arrive, I'll be shooting some outdoor scenes with many of the same models. It gives me something more to look forward to once warm weather arrives.