Tanya, Izzy & Dessa

Abstraction in photography started very early on with contact prints of plants in the 1830's; later on, with Vortograpghs, Rayographs, et cetera— with the inventors' name usually attached. Most of these abstractions were darkroom processes (and later with digital effects). I tend to prefer abstraction via straight photography. Strange angles, strange lighting, strange subjects and in your face close-ups. I also prefer to leave little Easter Eggs, so that the viewer can still figure things out. I find that if you don't leave a little something for someone to find, the eye gets bored and moves on. With abstract nudes, that means a lip, or a belly button, or a nipple that says what you're really looking at. Belly buttons are my favorite detail because everyone recognizes them even when distorted, but no one takes it as gratuitous.

Percolate & Autumn

I think, in the future, people are going to look back and say, 'I can't believe that gay and lesbian people had to fight to be able to get married'. ~Edy Ganem

Lillian

Something a little more elegant. I've found that violinists make the best models. At the very least, they have amazingly expressive hands— they've been unconsciously practicing on making them articulately eloquent since childhood. No posing necessary on that front...

Joe & Lissa

Burlap is a good all-purpose background (see the last post...). I think that I paid $40 around twenty years ago for a ton of remnants that I keep stuffed in an old steamer trunk (which looks like I stole it from a pirate). I can throw them over another backdrop, throw them on the floor and walk on them, stuff 'em back in the trunk... they just keep looking even better! They're pretty awesome.

Percolate

My ropework images tend to have a rawness and a visceral immediacy to them. I think that these two are a bit more on the elegant side. Being tied up can be very calming and relaxing— everything is relative. Also, a side note— I think that the burlap backgrounds work best with my bondage work, as it perfectly matches the feel and texture of the hemp rope.

Little One

Keeping the aesthetic of the last few posts...

Sienna Luna

These natural outdoor nudes are me going back to my past. More like work from ten, fifteen, even more like twenty years ago. Definitely changing gears a bit. Slightly Edward Weston influenced. I love Edward Weston, but I have rarely taken much direct inspiration from him, until recently. Seems to work here well enough!

Tanya Dakin

Reminiscing the days before digital: I remember ogling the Canon 10D digital camera when it came out in 2002— I steadfastly clung to my EOS-1V film camera and told it... you will not be replaced by this new-fangled not quite good enough yet digital thing-a-ma-jiggy (I was already an old man at heart), and I still have important work to be done in my brand-spanking-new-better-than-ever darkroom. Then came the 20D in 2004— well, the poor EOS-1V didn't have a chance, despite that even today it is still a pretty awesome camera. Here are a couple of film images from 2004. Tanya said she loved the fact that I was still shooting film and giving out real prints from the darkroom, and I didn't have the heart to tell her I was about to try something different...

Lucy

This image represents an example of an ongoing project that I've been working on during the past few years. I've been going back to older images and completely starting over from scratch, and finding new ways to finish them. That is the beauty (and possibly the frustration) of the potential of negatives— whether film or digital. The possibilities of what a technically good negative can be turned into are endless. In the past, my modus operandi was to retain good solid blacks, make sure that the lightest areas were not blown out- and then let everything else fall in between. This was a logical way to work in the darkroom with film, with some burning & dodging here and there to help. Using layers in Photoshop, though, allows me to exploit areas of detail that would have been impossible or at least extremely difficult in the darkroom. Rather than exploiting the possibilities of distorting or retouching images, I'm finding that instead, I can create levels of detail that inherently exist, but were way beyond my reach in the darkroom. That is to say that I'm not making detail up, but merely excavating it very carefully, much the way an archaeologist carefully excavates a dig with fine brushes and other tools. After all, that's exactly what Photoshop is anyway- a very powerful tool. Of course, all tools can be used either heavy-handedly or with fine precision. I've discovered that using fine precision is allowing me to make images that are hyper-real, instead of becoming hyper fake.

Speaking of detail, the images that I post here are actually scaled down versions in order to be viewed easily on the blog- if the image is clicked on, a larger and more detailed version can be seen...

Little One

With the exception of suspensions, I regret spending as much time as I have in the past shooting with a white backdrop. With the suspensions, I feel that it gets rid of the unnecessary distractions, therefore keeping things elegant. I actually tried black backdrops first, but too much information disappeared into them— the white gives everything a nice pop and a sense of depth that black was missing. Otherwise, in retrospect, the white backgrounds feel kind of soulless. They also feel fake, like a fashion shoot— which is what I originally got them for. This one, although one can't really tell, was after a suspension— you can see some rope marks on her legs...

Heff

It makes me happy when I can incorporate movement and have it come across effectively. It's more difficult than it seems, at least for me. It's something that I wanted to capture for as long as I've been shooting, but it's only recently that I've been achieving it.

Jade Vixen

Smoke & Mirrors.

Heff

Pepper No. 30 is one of the best-known photographs taken by Edward Weston. It depicts a solitary green pepper in rich black-and-white tones, with strong illumination from above. To me, it always looked like a perfect nude, with a wonderful texture. Many, of course, saw that, as well as many other things (usually sexual). Weston hated these comparisons, despite that nudes were one of his main subjects— he felt that it was just a picture of a pepper. There is even a nude (Nude, 1936), though, of his that perfectly pairs with the pepper image. A couple of years ago I did a nude that I thought was a nice subtle homage to this nude without being a total rip-off. And now, this is what I think is a nice subtle homage to his pepper series...

Heff

This is from a series that kind of look like those old-timey boardwalk photographs— except that they more resemble actual vintage images, rather than being campy or hokey. I find it interesting there is such a fine line between being genuine versus silly. I like the challenge of taking that extra effort to make it work. By the way, I scraped this scene together on a tight budget and have been using it for years now— the rug was $20 from IKEA, backdrops are my usual from fabric row, and the rest came as bits and pieces from Linens n' Things (remember that?). It all fits into an old steamer trunk, and it takes me about 15 minutes to set it up!

Olivia

The last post was an image that's twenty years old... this one is almost thirty years old, and likewise looks exactly the same as when I first made it— no Photoshop, just a straight scan from a beloved platinum/palladium print. Likewise, my work has changed, but I think that it still retains many of the same hallmarks. This was my Pictorialism phase (my first adopted style), which I still return to on occasion because I've never lost a fondness for it. While there is no precise definition of Pictorialism, I would describe it as a photographic approach focused on the beauty of subject matter and conjuring a certain romantic dreaminess rather than strict documentation of the world as it is. Early photographers felt that they had to prove that photography could be a relevant art form, not just a science. As a photographic art movement, it was strongest from 1885 to 1915. It then started to be phased out, and even scorned by photographers that were forward thinking— sharply focused, pristine and modern was the new thing. Most never looked back to it again. Of course, now that the history of photography has mostly been written, there really is no period that is irrelevant or overlooked— everything had its place and purpose. People are now just starting to go back and revisit past styles. I started right off the bat with revisiting past styles, because I felt that the 80' & 90's would quickly become painfully dated— I didn't see anything meaningful happening, and I wanted to avoid it all. Personally, I feel that Pictorialism could be practiced forever because it is based on timeless universal beauty.

Amy & Christine

This image is twenty years old, but I've never posted it before. I have not done anything new to it since it didn't need anything done. I pretty much got it just right in the camera— a rare thing! That being said, it is a good image to show as a comparison to show how much I have or haven't changed in the way that I shoot. You tell me...

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

Izzy & Dessa

These are older shots that I've re-worked from scratch. There were some details that I think I overworked, and some details that I added which I now think were unnecessary. Sometimes it takes me a few years to realize that I didn't get it right the first time. Actually, it often takes me a few years to realize mistakes, and I rarely get it right the first time.

Sofia & Cammy

Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body. ~Martha Graham

Lee

There is something about this image that I find delightfully strange. A nice combination of awkwardness, elegance, and tension. It is not posed— posing is something that I've been avoiding for a long time, as I think that it tends to lead to stilted and artificial images. I make my models work, constantly moving and trying to get over self-consciousness. They never seem to mind, since they can appreciate that I am willing to work just as hard. I'd be lying, of course, if I said that I entirely avoid posing— I'm a sucker for a strong image of an obviously professional model working it, which makes things easier for me at the same time. I really do try to avoid it, though. That's when I get images like this...