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...