Leilani & Madison, June 2004

I enjoyed working with Brooke & Victoria during our Model Marathon, done during late May, 2004; I especially enjoyed the portion where both models posed together. I don't often do two-model sittings, for several reasons:

I tend to preconceive of one-model images.
I often don't like two model images, because comparing the models is often instinctual & often distracting from the overall image.
Many of the images are cliché. It's rare to see images that define a relationship between the models.
Some models aren't comfortable with two-model sittings.
The sittings last the same amount of time as one-model sittings, and they result in about the same amount of exposures, but the sitting itself costs nearly twice as much, because you have to pay both models.
It's sometimes difficult to avoid sexual overtones, and I don't always want sexual overtones.

Ever since I did some fetish photography using fine art crafted lighting (in the most recent sitting with Lydia), I've been thinking about using well crafted light for erotic and/or bondage photography. I decided to do a short sitting (2 hours instead of my customary 3) & expose 7 rolls of film -- that combined with the 3 rolls left over from the Model Marathon would be a full batch for my film processor. Further, with the success of some of the digital images I exposed during the Model Marathon, I thought I'd expose more digital images.

Leilani expressed an interest in branching out with more adult & fetish posing, so I invited her to pose for this short erotic sitting. I asked Leilani to suggest another model to pose with her, and she suggested Madison, who had posed for me before. Sounds easy, right?

I've wanted to use more finely crafted lighting for fetish & erotic posing -- pretty much all of the fetish & erotic photography I've seen has had bad lighting & no artful composition.

I've also purchased a new soft box -- I had been using a medium-large (3'x4') softbox as the main light, but this new softbox is a bit smaller, maybe 2'x3').

Leilani has expressed interest in more submissive bondage photography -- we start off with a taste of such for this sitting, but we eventually move away from it.

I should let you know up front that this sitting got mildly erotic in parts. As you may know, I'm not comfortable showing the more erotic stuff in this unrestricted, generally available, public gallery. Most of this sitting will be available on pages in the secret galleries (to learn more about those secret galleries, click here).

Full disclosure: this particular sitting didn't get overly explicit but certainly did get erotic in parts. (There are some fairly explicit images in other parts of the secret galleries, just not from this sitting).

Anyway -- the milder pictures are presented here on this single page in the public galleries; the more erotic pictures are on four pages in the secret galleries. Most of the pictures will be "secret".

During this sitting, I made more exposures with the digital camera (although the exposure was a tad too light). But I did create some good digital exposures during the Modeling Marathon, so I was thus encouraged to make more digital exposures. Unlike previous sittings, I'm not going to be compulsive about announcing which images are digital -- you are on your own! Hint: you can tell by the tonality. The digital images, like this one to the left, are more coppery in appearance, and they are a bit lighter than the film images -- also, the digital images have a "d" in their file name. But from now on, I'll just intersperse the film & digital images together. If you are interested in the distinction, you figure it out -- there are plenty of clues.

I am liking this lighting. The smaller light box produces a bit more shadow throughout the image, which gives the image a sense of depth. I also like the odd little reflections you get in spots. I think the lighting is very dramatic.

I like this sequence, with the handcuffs on Leilani. Sure, the bondage aspect of these images is understated, but it's enough to establish relationships & mood. Bottom line: Leilani wears bondage gear well.

More erotic versions of this setup are available on the secret pages.

I've said it before & I'll say it again: I don't ask models to get horizontal often enough. As soon as Leilani likes down, I'm inspired briefly to repeat the concept from an old set of images from my California days, called "105%".

But I really shouldn't repeat concepts unless I have specific ideas on how to improve upon it. While current images are much better technically from the old California ones, conceptually these images are the same. We move on.

After several horizontal exposures, I change the lighting a bit, ask the models to sit up, and make more images. Unlike the earlier images, these have no handcuffs or other bondage gear.

I like these images. Some are erotic, some only mildly so, and some are not very erotic at all, but throughout, all these images have a sense of intimacy.

This is a favorite image from this sitting.

I especially like this image, because of the lovely light on Madison's torso. Mark this one as a favorite, too.

This one was a digital image, and I knew right away that I was going to like it. I rush to make an exposure with the film camera (below), but the resulting image isn't quite as good as this digital image. I still like the light on Madison's torso, but the changes in their faces makes the image less powerful. What do you think?

I'm becoming more & more impressed with the fact that subtle little changes in the lighting setup can make big, big differences in quality of the lighting. A similar lighting setup to this image was used for much of the Model Marathon, but the major difference is that the main light (lighting that side of Madison's face) came from a slightly smaller light box, which created more shadow while still producing soft highlights.

I judge photographs on basically two criteria: technical & aesthetic. Technically, this image, as it appears on my computer screen, is as good as any I've created -- it has good tonality, good detail in shadows, and nice (not blown out) highlights. But the aesthetic is more important to me than technical, and I like the quiet feel to this image. I love, love, love Madison's hands on Leilani, coupled with the peaceful expression on their faces.

And on that note, we'll conclude the public gallery portion of this sitting's images.

Lots of great things happened during this quick sitting:

I've got to say that Leilani looks like she enjoys submissive fetish/bondage posing.
Madison & Leilani really are good friends and were immediately comfortable posing together.
Much (most) of the time, the lighting was lovely. I really like my new soft box!
We got this sitting done in 2 hours (as opposed to my usual 3) -- we were much more efficient on time.

While I love many of the images presented here on a public gallery page, the objective of the sitting was to use good lighting & composition for erotic posing. These are displayed on pages in the secret gallery (to learn more about those secret galleries, click here). As I've said, these particular images are mildly erotic but not explicit.

Although I haven't actually calculated it, I've always assume that 90% of the time, I make fine art nude photographs, and 10% of the time, I explore fetish and/or erotic themes. I like this concept of using fine art lighting for fetish and/or erotic photography, and I'm sure I'll return to it in the months ahead.