Jade Vixen

We are bombarded with visual images. The potential for any particular image being memorable is being diluted with everything else. Where we once just saw photographs in magazines and books and snapshots (perhaps a gallery), we now see them constantly on the internet. For photographers, this is a blessing and a curse. More people than ever can see our work— but unless it's absolutely iconic, it probably is not being remembered all that well. It is more important than it ever was to have a certain look to your work, for it is more likely that your general body of work is being remembered, rather than a few select images. Perhaps one image, again, but only if it is something that really stands out. This is quite sobering. I've always thought that is important that one creates their art more for themselves than for others to see— for since it has always been a difficult endeavor to remain relevant, it seems harder than ever in a culture that overwhelms us with optical stimuli.

Nicole

This is a rather old film shot of mine, still a favorite, from the mid-1990's.

Lucy & Nathalia

Full disclosure: I’ve always been a cropper. Having started with film and spending years developing black and white photos, cropping in the darkroom always felt natural. To me, it also felt necessary to accomplish what I wanted to. This despite being vehemently told otherwise by others— they said that cropping was a cop-out for not being able to get it right in the camera, and it was a form of lying. Of course, that's B.S. All photographs are lies, all photographs are crops. My definition of a photograph is to add edges to the world which has no edges. But, none the less, I had guilt about cropping. I realize now that a “perfect” rectangle or square— pulled back so you see the edges of the negative in the exposed print (to “prove” you haven’t cropped) is basically a parlor trick. Over time I've seen the work of many photographers who don't crop beside the camera— and I honestly feel that while they may sometimes get an image that looks pure and wonderful, usually their compositions in the majority of their work are kind of (if not very much so) seriously lacking. So, yeah, I crop. Not always, sometimes just a little, and sometimes a lot. Sue me. All these years later, I look back with no regrets about it.

Lucy & Nathalia

It is nice to get a glimpse of a lady bathing
you scrubbed your flower face and cleansed your lovely body
while this old monk sat and watched
feeling more blessed than even the emperor of China.

Ikkyū  一休宗純  Zen Buddhist monk, 1394-1481

Sonia & Jenn

This was actually just a smoke break that caught my eye, which I took a quick snap of— the studio lights happened to still be on. That's a nice benefit of using continuous lighting. It turned out to be the best shot of a shoot that was already finished. Those kinds of things can really make your day.

Sarah

I've always tried to maintain a strong lock onto the eyes. Normally, there is a natural rhythm of looking at people and looking away. When it feels right, we can hold our gaze a little longer, relishing a simple moment of human connection. We are naturally drawn into images by eye contact. There is nothing like that feeling of a tie bound by an invisible thread, as in sharing a unique moment with them. It’s very hard to articulate and explain in words that feeling that connects you to a subject, either in the viewfinder or on the printed page. When that connection is there, though, it's obvious— and doesn’t need words to explain it; we feel it.

Twinky

This is one of my favorite images, perhaps because it has a unique oddness to it. It's not something that someone else could imitate very easily. In fact, I don't think that I could replicate it again myself if I wanted to. It was the serendipity of the right model doing the right thing— while by chance, I got the right angle with just the right lighting. It certainly was not something that I consciously designed or thought of beforehand. It was a happy accident.

Sable Sin Cyr

Angelina Jolie lips, plus some.

Jezz

"I’ve watched people at the gallery looking at the nudes, and I find it interesting that they don’t spend the most time in front of the beautiful bodies… even young gallery-goers seem to be more involved with the bodies that show signs of wear and tear, the one that shows evidence of having been lived in.”  ~Chuck Close

Ajaye

This reminds me of the Shroud of Turin. Which reminds me of "In Search Of...", that was narrated by Leonard Nimoy in the 1970's. My favorite was "In Search of... The Bermuda Triangle". Talk about early sensationalism! Now I tend to think, umm— how about that planes & boats disappear simply because it's a very large area that is extremely prone to nasty storms, despite that it's surrounded by heavily populated civilization? There was, indeed, an "In Search of... the Shroud of Turin", though. This image is dedicated to that episode.

Meira

Something a little more 1940's Hollywood Glamour, mixed with some Film Noir nudity...

Ajaye

"Photography is the easiest medium with which to be merely competent. Almost anybody can be competent. It's the hardest medium in which to have some sort of personal vision and to have a signature style."  ~Chuck Close

Percolate & Autumn

Recently someone left me a comment stating that they reworked the single images of photographers found on the internet. He also mentioned that he (Alexandros “Ishkandar” Raskolnick) hoped that I didn't mind that he reworked a couple of my images. Generally, I don't really care for such things, but I really liked this interpretation of two of my images combined:

Meira

As an unparalleled expert in nothing, I'd like to give one suggestion on how to make window shots more dreamy and delightful: a flower in the hair. Bam! Instant whimsical loveliness. If anyone needs more expert advice on nothingness, just send me a line at kevinloreaux@easy-peasy-photo-ideas.com

Jezz

Some things that only former film photographers remember (and certainly don't miss...):

Looking at and having to edit with contact sheets. Ugh. I hated this. Trying to look at 36 little images with a loop and figuring out which were worth printing. Then you tried a print, only to find that, yep— it wasn't worth printing. I remember thinking that there has to be a better way. Now you can look at them big as a screen, side by side, whatever. Slight improvement? Hell, yeah.

Cleaning up the darkroom (chemicals, trays, sink, developing containers, et cetera) after every session, whether it was 20 minutes or 8 hours. That got old. I remember thinking that there has to be a better way. It's called a computer and a screen.

Either the extreme expense of having a lab develop film for you— or developing it yourself, which was real tedious. I remember thinking that there has to be a better way.

Having to check how many shots you have left on a roll. The guilt of thinking that you have just shot 7-9-12 (more?) rolls of film, and the cost and tediousness of dealing with it. I remember thinking that there has to be a better way. There sure was.

Having to stick with one ISO for at least a whole roll of film (like 100, 400, or 3200). Not to mention that anything over 400 ISO was only good if you considered it fine art. I remember having to juggle two cameras at a wedding— either a combo of low and higher ISO, or color and B&W. I still keep two great cameras with me (you have to have a back-up camera)— but one with a 24-70mm f2.8 lens and one with a 50mm f1.2 lens, so I can quickly get appropriately different kinds of shots. Much better.

Speaking of weddings, having to change a roll of film right when there is a shot to be had— yeah, that sucked. I could go on and on, but these are some of the biggies that I really don't miss at all...

Percolate

Over the past few years, I have been doing suspensions in collaboration with Ian. He is very experienced with rope bondage and suspension. In the BDSM world, "full suspension" refers to suspending a person's entire body off the floor with the aid of ropes, chains, or cables. A typical full suspension is an advanced and somewhat risky form of rope bondage. It involves the use of elaborate knots, and many practitioners use modular rope segments that can be quickly released in case the subject experiences a loss of circulation, unwanted pain, or loses consciousness, etc. This is one of the reasons that Ian does the suspensions. Besides that I'm not really experienced enough to do suspensions, it wouldn't be wise for me to be oblivious to someone's safety while I'm photographing them. Most of the rope work that is photographed on the floor, however, are things that I have done myself.

One of the reasons that I began an interest in doing a series on suspensions is that, both in books and surfing the net, it is very hard to find many well-made photographs of suspensions. It's not difficult to find well-done rope work, but the combination of great rope work and images seems to be greatly lacking. So it seemed to be something really worth taking on. After this portfolio builds and expands (I'd like to move the setting outside in trees, for example), I'd like to perhaps get a book published on it.

Valentina

I often do shoots where the model wants to remain anonymous in one way or another. One way is that I do not ever display their images on the internet if they are in any way recognizable. I'm not particularly fond of that method, but I can respect it. Another way is getting creative with obscuring the face just enough to make recognition of the person in question impossible. Yeah, her name isn't Valentina...

Jade Vixen

I fancied up my "Sitting on a Bar Stool" series by draping some black velvet background over it. Voilà! Instant elegance! I love simple solutions like that.

Lady Lazurus

A certain elegance to this one– despite being one of those "Oh, look, my breast fell out of my dress!" shots that I typically try to stay away from. It probably works because it has some abstract qualities, a nice moodiness and that sweetly coy look in her eyes– even though it's still just one of those "Oh, look, my breast fell out of my dress!" shots...

Meira

There's some kind of vague Bill Brandt quality to this one. Not any image of his in particular— just the general feel. I've read so many photography books over the years, and all of it gets sort of mashed up as influences, and then I'll just spit out a little bit. It reminds me of someone who made his lunch sandwiches with a slice of tomato, but then he took the tomato off. So then the sandwich simply had the "essence" of tomato, but no actual tomato. True story. This image has the "essence" of Bill Brandt.

Devorah

Yeah, this is one of my tried and true shots— model laying down with eyes closed and letting hands and fingers roam, while I shoot it all from above and behind. I basically developed it as a way of getting a sure shot for paid boudoir shoots involving a green subject who is nervous and has never done a shoot before. I have some other set-ups like this, but this one is practically guaranteed to succeed every time. The secret is that she can become oblivious to my presence (eyes closed & listening to good music), with the added bonus being that closed eyes remove the need to make that often difficult emotional connection to the lens. Yeah, the cat's out of the bag... closed eyes= instant soulfulness! Not that I invented that, as it goes back to the beginning of photography with photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron in the 1860's, and every one since. It is a nice trick to have in the arsenal, though.

Dessa

I was a painter (although not a particularly good one) and a designer (not too shabby) before I became a photographer, so I learned ahead of time to think abstractly about composition. From the beginning through to now, I've always thought as much about the composition as much as anything else. This is a good example of that— the head goes off towards the top corner as if it is trying to escape the boundaries of the photograph. Likewise, the hand is pressing down the middle bottom. Along with a couple other details, the overall effect is that she is visually trying to push out of the box she is contained in. Which, in turn, creates a visually dynamic image. This is a primary part of my thought process— both when I'm shooting and as a final image. I've never really stated this here or anywhere else, but it is truly one of the main things I'm thinking of when shooting. That, and trying to get the lighting right. I'm not ever really trying to tell a story or execute an idea. I hate "ideas"! I don't, however, tend to do this consciously. I shoot too quickly to do that. It's more of an automatic process that I've trained myself to do. I pick up the camera and simply shoot. When I'm editing, I then more or less consciously pick the ones that work in that way...

Sara

In the pale moonlight.

Heff

The tight cropping really makes this one— as if she's boxed in and trying to escape the imaginary boundaries of the photograph...

Kate

Homage to Cabaret.

Sylvia

I've been doing different versions of this shot for as long as I've been shooting, which is about 25 years now. It usually does not work, as hands on the face photographs typically look either stiff, forced or fake. Often, they're absolutely painful to look at. I always think of the hand on the face scene in Napoleon Dynamite! What makes it work are the hands and their owner- the combination of photogenic hands and someone who knows how to bring them to life. Hands can be just as expressive as facial expressions. Hell, they can be even more so- think how much sign language can convey. Human hands can paint the Sistine Chapel, pluck a guitar, maneuver surgical instruments, chisel a David, forge steel, and write poetry. They can grasp, scratch, poke, punch, feel, sense, evaluate, hold and mold the world around us. No other species has appendages with such a remarkable range of capabilities. And yet, so some weird reason regarding photography not liking hands on faces, I can count on one hand how many people out of everyone that I've photographed have amazed me with their hands in an image...

Jade Vixen

Confession: the single biggest influence on my lighting style is George Hurrell, the Hollywood glamour photographer from the 30's & 40's (although he worked until he died in the 90's). George Hurrell never did nudes, though, let alone anything explicit or erotic. Sensual, yes— but definitely not sexual. Everything else about my work tends to differ from his as well. Well, except occasionally, when it doesn't. The image below (as well as some others that I've done of Jade Vixen) is a homage to Hurrell's images of Anna May Wong. There is a little nipple slip in one of his prints that I've seen, but that is about as close as he ever came to showing nudity— and I doubt that it ever made its way into publicity shots.

Tanya Dakin

This is from a 5-minute shoot with Tanya Dakin— short but sweet is sometimes better...

Emily

Early on, one of my biggest influences was Man Ray, among some other early 20th century masters. I've got away from directly emulating this photographer or another. Years of pouring over photography books, though, have left indelible memories that get spit back out every now and then— whether consciously or unconsciously. This one definitely seems to remind me of Man Ray. That is not necessarily such a bad thing...

Devon

It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary.  ~David Bailey

Meira

Yeah, another Meira. Hell, why not? There are lots more from where this came from...

Meira

If someone considers my work to be porn, although I don't think it is, at least I'd like it to be considered porn with a certain amount of gravitas...

Heff

"Wearing nothing is divine, naked is a state of mind..."  ~ Luscious Jackson

Jade Vixen

invert - inverting - inverted - inverta.

Ajaye

The Lost Art of Removing Clothes.

Genevieve

“When people ask me what equipment I use, I tell them ‘my eyes’.” ~ Unknown source

Devon

"Good taste is death. Vulgarity is life." ~ Mary Quant

Ajaye

Nibblers Challenge— to bite at gently and repeatedly.

Sara

Über sad-faced Sara. You may have noticed that there are not many smiles in the work presented here. For better or for worse, smiling is a coping strategy. To me, you perhaps get closer to the soul of a person when they stop smiling.

Di

Night time in Chinatown.

Meira

I like the movement and vitality of this one. I typically try to stay away from spread leg shots, as they tend to be a little too porn-tastic. This seems to transcend that a little bit.

Izzy

I think that Izzy had more fun doing a suspension than anybody else. She had been pestering me for quite a while to do one, and now I could see why...

Ajaye

"I am not interested in rules and conventions... photography is not a sport. If I think a picture will look better brilliantly lit, I use lights or even flash. It is the result that counts, no matter how it was achieved." ~Bill Brandt