Photoblog 2.0

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

Looking at this photo in Adobe Bridge, it was the most underexposed of the set—and very, very dark. The histogram was bunched tightly to the left. You’d expect some of the histogram to be left-biased. After all, the background is black—and an exposure histogram is a graphical representation of the distribution of values from dark to white. But most photographers don’t normally select captures where the entire histogram is essentially pinned to the left wall, which represents darkness.

Of all the exposures with comparable composition, I chose this dark one. I take this as am important reminder: that “properly” exposed photos are rarely very interesting.

It took me most of the day to “tease” the painterly elements of the rear view of this model out of this dark composition, and I intentionally left a great deal of the image in the dark. So this photo reminds me of another significant point. In life, a little mystery is more intriguing than complete revelation. So, too, in art and photography: You often get more mileage by not showing everything.

The Riddle, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Briefly noted: What is the question? What is the answer? There’s a story here. But it’s carefully guarded by this pair of sphinxes who take their modeling seriously. IR capture with human (and stone) models at the Mountain View Cemetary in Oakland, California.

Pretzel, photo by Harold Davis.

Briefly noted: Merrique is a model who is very comfortable with figure work, and who is a Yoga adept. This pose may seem contorted, but I think she was having a good time.

In post-processing, I converted the image to black & white, and added the vignetting to the corners.

Model Bride 2, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

No Bridezilla, this bride posed in every way that we asked and was a model bride because she was, well, a model. Photographed at a wedding photography workshop led by the talented Michelle Pattee under the auspices of Martha Blanchfield’s Renegade Meetup Group—one of a number of unusual and effective photographic education events put on by this group.

Some things I learned:

• Shoot wide open, using low depth-of-field to maximize interest on the bride.
• Don’t worry too much about technical perfection and just get the shots; if you capture the spirit of the moment no one is going to worry about focus being off an inch or two.
• It’s not quite the pre-2008 halcyon days, but good wedding shooters in the Bay area can still make a bundle.

Briefly noted: My image Objectify has stirred up some rather heated reactions. One comment on my blog begins “Are you going through a midlife crisis? The female form is so much more than a vase!” Indeed. Read the full comment and my response.

It’s amusing once again to have to deny being in a midlife crisis.

Kellie 3, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

As promised, here’s another view of Kellie—both in color (below) and after my monochromatic conversion (above).

Some other stories with photos of Kellie: Portrait of Kellie; Making Herself Small; Kellie.

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Portrait of Kellie – Monochrome, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I have had quite a bit of email related to my stories Kellie and Making Herself Small. No wonder! Kellie is a very beautiful model. Some of my readers have requested Kellie’s contact info; there’s been a jocular request that I pass a marriage request on to Kellie; and an apparently serious suggestion that she join a particular Reading Discussion Group. (I noted in the first Kellie story that she was a fan of Jane Austen.)

I will not provide Kellie’s contact information, and I will not pass any messages along to her. Please, she is a shy and private person. But, for those of you who’ve asked, here is more Kellie: a portrait in monochrome and full living color. Maybe more to your taste: some more Kellie figure studies are coming as well.

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

I posed Kellie by asking her to make herself as small as possible (not easy for this six foot plus model).

She did her very best to oblige, and looked at me like “what is this crazy photographer up to”—hence the wonderful stare and glare in this photo.

Kellie in Monochrome, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Kellie is a model with an obviously attractive physique. She’s also a thoughtful young woman who is an omnivorous reader. Jane Austen is her favorite author.

Astute readers of this blog will note some changes in physiognomy from the color version (below) to the monochromatic version (above).

I liked the lighting on Kellie, and the “figure eight” composition made by the integration of her arms with her body. But a close inspection of her face (check out the large size below) shows the left pupil in her eye apparently towards the lower end of her eye socket in an unattractive way. In addition, her right nostril shows only as an odd-looking dot.

I addressed these issues in the Photoshop darkroom by moving the pupil of her eye slightly up, and painting in a bit more nostril where it “ought to have been” in the first place.

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Bonnie with Umbrella, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Briefly noted: Bonnie looks pretty on a white background with a decorative umbrella. Slightly overexposed for a high-key effect.

I’m off today to teach a weekend macro and close-ups workshop at the tip of Point Reyes. There’s no connectivity there, so I’ll suffer slight withdrawal symptoms—and no blog posts until next week. Until then, dear reader, be good or be good at it!

Sheer White, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Based on the responses I’ve got, my story in Nearly Naked Women struck a chord. People were truly worried, which is touching. For example, K.K. wrote, “Although you don’t owe most of us any explanation, I thank you for giving us one. [You've shown] many photos of your family, so even though I don’t really know you, I feel like I do, and the naked ladies were a little disconcerting and worrisome…but also absolutely gorgeous.”

Rest assured, my family is doing well—and will always come first for me.

Approaching a photo like the one shown above may take some detachment (as noted in the previous story) so I can consider issues of composition, exposure, lighting, and so on. It also takes some passion, as does any good photography, no matter what the subject. Then again, eating a good meal or enjoying a movie or novel also takes passion.

Another issue revealed in my previous story is the extent to which my blog represents a day-by-day account of the issues that come up in my life and my photography in something like real time. I noted that my blog “goes back to 2005, includes thousands of almost daily entries, and documents life’s tribulations, photographic techniques, and much more.”

A number of people wrote to say that they had no idea about the quantity of imagery and stories in my archive. The blog format—and the Internet itself—makes it easy to focus on the latest and greatest, and to ignore the past. By the way, the easiest way to start browsing my archives is to use the month-by-month links on my blog’s home page masthead—although you can also search for topics, or simply hit the Older Entries back arrow thousands of times. (I’m not responsible for any repetitive stress injuries that follow the back arrow method.)

I want to point out that I don’t go back and revise older entries. Sure, I’ll correct typos when they are pointed out. But as a matter of principle, I decided not to edit the past. This “no take-backs” policy means that you get my photography (and my life) as I saw it at the time, not as it looks in retrospect.

As I look back my blog is sometimes embarassing, and there are some photos that I posted five years ago that I wouldn’t publish today. But the stories are always authentic, many photos are interesting, and it is a weird by-product of the Internet that I get to have a digital time capsule and archive available for all time (or at least so long as I pay the web hosting fees).

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

A good friend living across the country who we don’t see very often wrote me: “I am so not used to you doing risque photos of women that I find it a bit disconcerting.” The questions behind the comment, of course: Is everything all right with you and Phyllis? Are you having some kind of mid-life crisis?

Nothing of the sort—but if our friend wondered, I realize, so might others. After all, images of nearly naked women are a pretty far cry from my more usual fare of landscapes, night photography, flowers, and Photoshop “impossible” imagery.

I wrote the friend (in part): “No worries, it is all professional. I’m under contract to do a couple of projects that involve photographing people, and I’ve found models one of the easiest ways to get practice.”

Of course, I don’t deny that photographing naked women is fun. Phyllis is fine with my efforts in this direction, and observes that in fact this shows the strength of our marriage.

I’ve found that all the different kinds of photography have their own distinct challenges. Until you’ve tried flower photomacrography, for example, you won’t appreciate the challenges. So figure photography has some unique isssues.

Among these is the taxonomy of the exchange between photographer and model. All good models enjoy being exhibitionists; and all good photographers are voyeurs. Whether or not money changes hands, all good professional models and photographers are excited by creative image making.

I often find myself approaching the composition of a female nude with some of the same clinical detachment that I might use in composing a landscape. However, part of the point of a nude—or nearly nude—is to convey the lineaments of desire, even if these lineaments are presented in the coolly classical manner of Edward Weston’s figure studies. Who noted, by the way, that it didn’t matter if it was a shell, an artichoke, or a woman.

I think Weston may not have known his own feelings that well, which is why he tended to sleep with his models (after all, you don’t usually go to bed with an artichoke). I try to take my feelings of attraction, sensuality, and desire—and bring them as a positive force into my life, my work, my relationship, and my relationship with my work.

Speaking of Weston, whom I admire enormously, I’ve noted previously that his famous Daybooks are essentially a blog in hard copy format. Turning this on its head, it is fair to say that my blog is my virtual “Daybook.” It goes back to 2005, includes thousands of almost daily entries, and documents life’s tribulations, photographic techniques, and much more. Many people who I don’t know read my blog. When I do meet them it is clear they know a great deal about me and my family. Therefore, it’s only fair that I explain the nearly naked women. They are about photography.

Hurrrell Lighting, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Martha Blanchfield of Renegade Photo Shoots organized a most excellent workshop on Hurrell lighting. Led by photographer Rafael Hernandez, the goal was to use modern studio lighting, digital cameras, and post-processing to simulate the look of classic Hollywood glamour photographer George Hurrell.

There were three models, a make-up artist, and some propping in keeping with the glamour theme. But the main emphasis was lighting, and digital simulation of the effects that Hurrell achieved the natural way.

Hurrell is probably most famous for his work in the 1930s. He made contact prints directly from 8X10 film shot in a view camera, typically at fairly slow shutter speeds (so the models had to be posed to keep still during the exposure process). The orthochromatic film available led to unrealistic renditions of colors; lips and cheeks tended to go dark. Uncoated lenses produced halo effects, and the film stock added halation, increased glow on the highlights. Film was underexposed and overdeveloped, leading to dramatic high contrasts between lights and darks, and much retouching (which was done directly on the 8X10 film, very carefully, by the legions of retouchers employed by the movie studios).

Essentially, harsh lighting and high-contrast development were balanced by soft lenses and extensive retouching.

These technical considerations led to what might be considered flawed results by modern standards. Certainly, Hurrell portraits are a far cry from the smooth glamour images of today. But Hurrell produced images that are dramatic and extraordinary. It’s interesting to speculate whether his success was in spite of, or because of, the technical constraints placed on Hurrell.

While chief portraitist at Paramount Studios, Hurrell helped develop the “butterfly” portrait lighting style (sometimes called “Paramount” lighting). Basically, a key light was placed above and directly in front of the model’s face.

The term “butterfly” refers to the shadow made by the model’s nose. As a matter of fact, dealing with the nose shadow is one of the key issues in any kind of portraiture with direct lighting pointed at the face. Hurrell’s approach was to position the model for an attractive butterfly shadow. Emulating this requires close coordination between camera position and the model: a little bit in one direction and the shadow becomes large and ugly, and a little to far in the other direction and your lens is looking up the model’s nostrils.

I shot the model above using my 100mm Zeiss lens, essentially a movie optic, and great for portraiture. Of course, it is much sharper than the uncoated lenses that Hurrell used, so I softened the image in Photoshop using a Gaussian blur, and also applied the Nik Glamour Glow filter.

Simulated Hurrell black and white tones and contrast were achieved by combining a High Contrast Red preset Black & White adjustment layer with the Nik Silver Efex Antique Plate 1 filter. You can find more about my monochromatic conversion techniques in Creative Black & White: Digital Tips & Techniques.

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.