Shelby with Whip, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

The model was a sweet cornfed blond from Texas without apparent guile or a mean bone in her body. Changing her from blond (below) to brunette (far below) made things a little more edgy.

How to wake the inner vixen?

I looked around for a prop. I asked her to wield a piece of rope as if it were a whip. I told her to think of someone she loved and hated at the same time. She had someone in mind immediately.

It’s not easy chaneling Helmut Newton (or at least making the attempt). Fortunately, I’m off to Yosemite for a few days wilderness camping with the boys tomorrow—leaving the complexities of adult life behind. Each kind of photography has its own unique challenges—and it is easy to forget that light is light—but I’m ready to channel Ansel Adams instead of Newton and move into heroic landscape mode.

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Succubus, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

A model can look ravishing, contemplative, or terrifying—depending on how she is posed, lit, and photographed. And on how the photo is post-processed.

In this case, the photo was a pretty typical studio pose with a lovely model dressed in a white camisole on a white background. In the Photoshop Darkroom I inverted the L channel to create the image you see. White has become black, and the overall treatment of the photo verges more on the frightening than the beautiful.

Magdalene, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

The human face is capable of infinite variety. When the expression changes, or the angle of view, the whole context of the face can change.

Lighting changes the contours of a landscape—a mountain looks very different at sunset than at sunrise. In the same way when you change the quality or direction of lighting the appearance of a face also changes.

In all its infinite variety, a photo of a face can also become a vessel for our projections about a person and what they are feeling.

For example, another photo of this model makes it seem clear that she is a down-to-earth, sensuous person. However, this portrait shows an almost religious and devotional aspect. I think of the pairing of intense devotion with carnality as the Mary Magdalene look.

Shot through a gauze curtain (it took a fair amount of post-processing to “iron” some of the wrinkles out) using a single strobe to the left and above the model. Exposure data: 200mm, 1/160 of a second at f/11 and ISO 100, hand held.

Masked Model, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

It’s amazing how putting on a mask can let someone show their real feelings. This model was clearly pretty disengaged and bored with the shoot. Maybe she was thinking about what she was going to have for dinner, cleaning out her closet, her next visit to her family. I don’t know.

Then I ask her to hold the domino mask to her face. All of a sudden the look changes. She is Seven of Nine from the Star Trek series. I think maybe she wants to kick my butt. I like the new look.