More Perfect As Is

I've gotten a lot of interest in my Perfect As Is series. Today, I had two photographers come to get their picture taken. It surprised me that photographer's would be interested in modeling for this series. I'm honored. First, I'm honored they think it's art. Second, I'm honored they think I'm good enough to represent them as they are. I hope I did them justice.

Perfect As Is

I am going to start taking a different kind of portrait. One that's more natural. This is me with the tiniest amount of makeup thrown on. All my wrinkles and spots are there, every single one. And when you look at this portrait large, I swear you can see small families living in my pores.

But it's me. It's what I look like almost every day. I have some crazy furrowed brow, my lips are downturned making me look pissed off all the time, my eyebrows go every which way, and I have speckled eyes that stare intently trying to figure it all out.

I spend so much time editing out the "flaws" of everybody when I take portraits that I make them unreal. It's the fairy tale version of people. And right now, I'm tired of the fairy tale. I want to see the reality. I want the reality to be good enough - better than good enough, perfect as is.

New Ring Flash

I broke down and bought a ring flash. I'm not sure what possessed me to do it, but I did.

I had fun playing around with it. It's a bit heavy. I complain about a heavy lens, imagine adding a whole light to the weight of your camera! I'll probably overuse it for a while. It is fun.

My self portrait was taken with extension tubes and a ring flash. All my new toys.

The portrait of Jen is a more typical ring flash portrait. I overexposed a bit, but I like that look better than the correctly exposed shots. I like to blow out skin. Maybe because it's easier than processing out all the flaws! I don't really know, I just seem to like that look.

Super Macro

I bought some extension tubes and this is my first attempt at using them. I combined them with my 100mm macro. It's hard to believe how close to the model I had to get to take this shot. It must be a little daunting to have a camera that close to you. And while I was taking the pictures, all I could think was, "Wow, look at those twitching lips, I'll never get them in focus." Each little movement looked huge in the viewfinder. Turns out that many of the images were in focus, thanks to the tripod!

Editing is a little tricky. I fought between wanting to keep it realistic while also not freaking people at with what looked like insanely huge lines and bumps. I probably went a little soft on this, but I like it.

Side note: the shape of the lips totally reminds me of the Rolling Stone lips.

2008 Review

I had to go to my archives for a file. I did 107 shoots, which is a lot for me considering this is a hobby.

Here's what I learned: more than I love photography, I love to put crap on top of people's heads.

My first shoot of the year on 1/4:

My last shoot of the year on 12/29:

Some more crap on people's heads:

My First Underwear Shots

Somebody was brave enough to let me shoot them in their underwear and in public. I'm grateful to Doug for taking a chance on me.

I'm really happy with these shots. I'm practicing more and more with men. I find them harder to pose and I have less ideas for them, so I really need to step up and figure out my creative block here.

Of course, now that I have three men in my portfolio, I'm getting asked to shoot more and more men, so pretty soon I will have all the practice that I need!!

Perfect Day for an Outdoor Shoot

 

Today was perfect to shoot outside — 80 degrees with no humidity, beautiful clouds in the sky and a breeze. And to make it even better, there were no crowds at every location, we had them all to ourselves. I wish everyday was this perfect when I was shooting, I would never go back into a studio!

I managed to get a variety of shots. I tend to use my lights too much and make it look like night when I shoot outside during the day. That wall shot was shot before the water shot, around 1 pm. I have a bunch from that series that look like afternoon, but I don't like them as much. And the water shot was a good challenge for me, full sun and one light to use as fill. Not to mention a fountain full of water to drop things in, which I did, but nothing electrical.

I haven't shot many men, I think I'm getting better at it.