Jessica
is a great favorite of mine. She
is a college student back east, but
she occasionally comes to this area to
visit her parents. She posed for
me for
the last sitting in 2003,
and this year (2004) she also was the last sitting -- she is my "2004
Bookend" model. She's a
yardstick for me -- I can see how much
I've learned & progressed in 2004.
Besides
being a wonderful model, she is an
avid photographer herself. You
can see some
of her work at this web site (you
may have to sign up for a free
membership to see her nudes).
Her self portraits (nude &
otherwise) are terrific. Go see.
I
have to admit that I had to entice
Jessica to pose for me a bit -- her
free time was scarce. She was overloaded with a full-time
holiday job plus family & holiday
obligations. We had been in
touch, so I did know that she
was interested in finding models so
that she could try her hand at
photographing the nude.
Unfortunately, she's a typical college
student -- i.e. no money, so I offered
to hire her a model in exchange for
her posing for me. She agreed
right away. After a little
discussion, I recommended that Jessica
photograph Leona, and offered my home
& equipment for her studio.
Jessica was really happy about that.
More on this later.
| Jessica
& I had discussed this
arrangement in November.
Then, in early December, I got
a call from her.
"I'm here! Are you
free for a sitting in two
days?" And just
like that, after all that
anticipation, we had a Sitting date:
in early December.
Now
I should point out that my
sitting with Jessica was only
four days after my
first sitting with Lindsay,
but if a favorite model like
Jessica offers to pose for
you, you jump at the
chance. Seems like I had
just put away all the
photography equipment when I
had to drag it all out
again. Oh, do I suffer
for my art! |
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My
sitting with Jessica wasn't a
typical one. It was
part sitting & part
tutorial -- I spent a good
amount of the time teaching
Jessica all sorts of things:
- How
to use a light meter.
- How
to use a gray card.
- How
to use the strobe
equipment.
- How
to use my camera (hers was
similar, but mine made
images with more
megapixels).
- What
sort of props &
locations are available.
Stuff
like that. As such, we
made more digital exposures
than usual -- that immediate
gratification is a great
teaching/learning tool.
Also, the tutorial aspects
slowed us down, but Jessica
had allotted ample time for
our sitting. Good thing
she's such a joy to be around! |
| Let
me pause to say that I thought
that Jessica was very
courageous for deciding to try
her hand at doing nudes.
Here she is, a college
sophomore, and she's trying
nudes.
Look
-- I went to college in the
early 70's, and I went to a
radical hippie college.
My school, unlike Jessica's,
was noted for advanced liberal
thinking and for its artistic curriculum.
Also, at that time, there was
no right wing backlash
present, at least not at my
college; this was the middle
of the "sexual
revolution", and "free
love" abounded.
Further, at that time, I had
had years of experience in
photography (I started when I
was around 14). Yet,
although I may have dabbled
with nude photography a little
in college, I
really wasn't ready to
undertake it as an artistic
focus, despite the ample
availability of willing
models. Nude photography
is hard!!!
Not
so for Jessica! If you
took a look at her web site,
you've seen that she has done
nude self portraits for quite
some time (and these are
wonderful!), and at her young
age, she is jumping into the
deep end of the pool with
enthusiasm. |
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Normally,
it's enough for me for a model
to leave a sitting feeling
respected, and I strive to do
that for every sitting.
It's sufficient for me to
maintain a professional &
constructive relationship with
my models.
But,
in Jessica's case, I feel that
we've become good friends
(despite the fact that I'm
probably older than her
parents). She is a very
impressive young woman.
Besides her obvious physical features,
- She
is bright & eager to
learn,
- She
has an innate appreciation
for difficult tasks, and I
like that a big lot,
- She
is smart & curious (a
wonderful combination),
- She
is willing to try,
- She
works hard.
And
I love that about her. |
| Jessica
is amazingly natural in front
of the camera. I suppose
that if you met her on the
street, she would look
pretty much like any other college
student, but somehow when she
is really looked at, when she
is in front of the camera, she
blooms with a simmering
sensuality. She is
absolutely amazing like that.
The
lesson here is that as a
photographer, you've got to
look, and I mean really look,
at the people & things
around you. Having
looked, you've also got to
see. There is
great beauty all around you,
if you can only look & see
it. Hence, my
nickname "looknsee"
-- you've got to develop &
nurture your eye -- that to me
is the essence of
photography. |
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This
sitting with Jessica was just
four days after the
sitting with Lindsay.
Normally, I like to
process one sitting completely before
undertaking the next. By
"process" I mean:
- Develop
the film,
- Print
contact sheets,
- Make
prints for scanning,
- Scan
the paper prints,
- Crop,
adjust, tone, etc. the
digital & scanned
images,
- Draft
the web pages,
- Review
web pages with model,
- Publish
the web page,
- and
most importantly, think
about the sitting:
- What
went well?
- What
could have been done
better?
- What
should I do
differently the next
time?
- Have
new ideas or
directions emerged?
I
hadn't had the opportunity to
process Lindsay's pictures at
this point, but like I said,
when a favorite model offers
you a chance, you grab it. |
| But
one thing I remembered from
Lindsay's sitting was that I
asked her to put her comfy
jammies back on. I love
the low-cut style popular in
jeans & pants
nowadays. When Jessica
removed her sweater, I asked
her to wait before removing
her jeans. I'm glad she
did. |
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Jessica
was used to working with
natural light, usually
outdoors -- her style was to
move around her subject to
make photographs from lots of
different angles. She
was concerned that working
with strobes would inhibit
that style.
Well,
working indoors (it was too
cold to work outside) does
inhibit camera movement a bit, but
not as much as you'd
think. I like to include
some shadows in my images, and
this particular lighting setup
is about as simple as it
gets: a single soft box
off to the left of the
camera. As you'll soon
see, I was able to approach
Jessica from multiple angles. |
| Same
lighting setup -- I just
utilize the swinging/pivoting
LCD screen of the digital
camera to move to Jessica's
right side (same side as the
softbox) & photograph from
a low angle. I continue
to move around. |
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This
sitting was the last of three
sittings in 12 days with three
different young women, and I
was reminded how chaotic life
can be for 20-ish year old
women. But Jessica was
totally focused during our
sitting, despite trying to
absorb tons of technical
information about using the
camera, the lighting, and the
house.
I'm
liking some of these images in
color -- I've noted that my
walls are warm colored -- in
fact, the parchment look of
the living room walls is about
the most tame of my
walls. But warm walls
& skin tones often result
in washed out color. But
the color of Jessica's jeans
are perfect & serve as a
color counterpoint to all the
other warm tones.
But
I like the sepia-toned
monochromatic images, too. |
| We
had a giggle over this
picture! No, Jessica
doesn't have a really big butt
-- that's the wide angle lens
distortion, combined with some
strategic shadow placement
that gives the illusion of a
super narrow waist. For
the record, Jessica has a
really nice butt. |
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I've
done this living room/low
angle/wide angle lens setup before,
so I decided to give it a
little twist. I moved to
Jessica's left side, away from
the softbox. I hadn't
made images from that side
before. The
lighting setup hasn't changed
-- all that's changed is the
position of the camera.
Remember, I was trying to
demonstrate to Jessica that
you can move around the model
quite a bit even though you
are using studio lighting.
And
we found some interesting
images on the other side of
the model. |
| For
no reason other than to
demonstrate to Jessica that
she can move around with
studio lighting, I ask her to
do some posing on the floor. |
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