Perverts Are Ruining My Job (?)

Besides shooting pretty girls for a living, another area of photography I'm interested in is street photography. Generally, though, I refrain from engaging in this art form for one particular reason: Pervs.

I stumbled across an article, written by Salt Lake Tribune photographer, Trent Nelson, while following some links in my "Came From" stats on statsounter.com. Nelson's article, one he wanted to title Perverts Are Ruining My Job. (He didn't title it that way, although he wrote that he wanted to.) Anyway, Nelson's article pretty much covers the reasons I refrain from doing something I'd really like to do, i.e., shooting street photography.

Why?

Let's say I go down to the strand at Venice Beach to shoot some pics of... well, of just about anything that strikes my fancy. And let's also say that some of my images are snaps that include a few of the many interesting-looking visitors to Venice Beach. Then, all of a sudden, someone decides I'm perving on them with my camera and finds a cop who comes over to question me. The cop takes a look at my images and, although he can't find anything pervy about them, takes down my name and other info. Fast forward a bit and, somehow, someone gets hold of the info the cop recorded, coupled with the accusation, and does a bit of internet research and discovers I shoot naked women for a living. You see where all this is going?

We live in hyper-paranoid times. For many people, photographers are especially suspicious and on so many levels. Is he working for terrorists? Is he a perv? What is he doing with those images?

Although I think I have a pretty good eye for street photography, I refrain because of the above reasons. Maybe I'm just as hyper-paranoid as the people who are hyper-paranoid of me? I don't know. Maybe. But something tells me to resist the urge to go out and shoot strangers. Leastwise, until someone gives me some press credentials. Since that isn't likely to happen, I guess I'll never have the opportunity to discover if my photographic "eye" is made of any of the same stuff as Henri Cartier-Bresson's was.

The pretty girl at the top is Monique from last week. I shot Monique in mid-afternoon, full daylight, with the sun slightly behind her. I used a strobe, modified with a medium-sized umbrella, to deal with the bright ambient, letting El Sol back light the model. Canon 5D, 28-135 IS USM, ISO 100, f/11 @ 125th.

Achy Breaky Heart for Disney?

As much as I admire the photographic skills and achievements of Annie Leibovitz, I have to question her recent artistic judgment. (Notice I didn't say, "commercial judgment.") Anyway, I'm talking about all the hoopla surrounding Ms. Leibovitz's inferred-nude photograph of 15-year-old teen-star, Miley Cyrus.

Leibovitz, probably the most famous portrait photographer in the world, recently photographed Cyrus for Vanity Fair. In one particular photo, 15-year-old Cyrus appears to be nude while hugging a satin sheet or a towel or something to her chest. (Gee! How creative Annie!) Besides the image being so pedestrian for the likes of an uber-shooter like Leibovitz, you have to wonder what she was thinking when she thought it would be a good idea to shoot an underage actress in such a provocative way? (Other than the fact it will probably sell a whole bunch of magazines... which, I suppose, IS what she was thinking.) One also wonders where Miley's PR handlers were when the image was snapped?

According to news sources, Cyrus claims it was Leibovitz who suggested the teen-star pose so adult-like for the layout. "...you can't say no to Annie," Cyrus is quoted as saying. "She's so cute. She gets this puppy dog look and you're like, 'O.K.'"

(Note to self: Develop and perfect a puppy dog look for use while working with 18+ models.)

The Disney Channel, who produces and broadcasts the hugely popular "Hannah Montana" franchise, of which Cyrus is the star and title-character, is in damage-control mode. They are, it seems, more than a little concerned the photograph might adversely impact the TV show's popularity as its audience is mostly underage kids. Then again, they might have been in on it themselves. It wouldn't be the first time photographs like these have had a positive impact on a performer's allure, 15-years-old or not. Some financial analysts have gone so far as to predict Disney's stock might take a hit as a result of the photograph. Personally, I think that's hogwash.

Vanity Fair, on the other hand, is painting the photo-shoot as a Disney-friendly, wholesome, family event with Miley's Dad, "Achy Breaky Heart" country-crooner, Billy Ray Cyrus, participating. They've even put a video up on their website to prove it! This whole thing, with the controversy it has stirred, smells, suspiciously, like a typical Hollywood publicity stunt.

The eye candy at the top is Hannah (not Montana) from last week. We were shooting in a motorcycle rental shop in Marina del Rey, California. I didn't have enough lights to light up the motorcycles parked in the rental shop's cavernous garage but then, with a model who looks like Hannah, who's interested in seeing a bunch of parked Harley's anyway? Aren't you glad I didn't have any towels or satin sheets handy?

How Warm Do You Like 'Em?

I've noticed that pretty girl photographers are all over the map when it comes to how much warmth and color saturation they'll add to the skin tones of their models. I'm talking, of course, about color temperature warmth, not temperature warmth.

For those who prefer their model's skin tones warm -- some shooters prefer them really warm while others prefer them moderately warm -- many photographers add warmth in production: Warming filters and gels, e.g., CTO (Color Temperature Orange), Bastard Amber, and others are utilized, as are gold reflectors. White Balance adjustments are also used to warm images. Some shooters use combinations of the above in their quest to present models with warm skin tones.

Production techniques aren't the only way to warm a model. Many photographers prefer to warm in post: Again, filters are employed, albeit digital filters, as well as post-production color adjustments.

Then, there are those photographers who prefer way less warmth, that is, they opt to cool their model's skin tone. Most of these people, it seems, rely more on post-production tricks (rather than production techniques) to cool the skin. Generally, this is accomplished with digital filters or by reducing skin tone with color (de)saturation methods.

There are those, of course, who work hard to present skin tones as naturally as possible. (This is often the most difficult to achieve as many variables, such as monitor calibration, come into play in greater ways.)

Which is preferable? Very warm? Warm? Cool? De-saturated? I have no idea. Personally, I prefer to moderately warm the model's skin and, generally, I'll do it through a combination of production and post-production techniques.

Warm is sexy. Leastwise, that's how many people perceive warm skin tones, especially when there's a lot of skin being exposed. And, well, that's what I do! I shoot pretty girls in sexy ways with a lot of skin exposed. So it's natural, I suppose, that I choose warming techniques to enhance the sexy value of the images I capture.

Occasionally, though, I hope to make my images look more artsier rather than sexier. In those cases, I'll cool the model's skin or de-saturate the color. Why does cool skin and/or de-saturated color seem to evoke a more artsy perception of nude and semi-nude pretty girl photographs? Again, I have no idea. It's just one of those things. It's simply how many people seem to perceive these things. Go figure, right?

The pretty girl at the top is Austin from one day of last week's production shoots. (I was booked every day this past week.) We were at a bookstore in Venice, California, and there was this area in the back of the bookstore with the counter and the stools and the brick wall and, well, I thought it would make for a decent shooting set. I lit Austin with two lights: a main light modified with a 32" Larson "Super-Silver" Reflectasol (I wanted to enhance the specular highlights on the stools and the counter-top) and a hair light, boomed behind and above Austin, modified with a small, rectangular, Photoflex soft box. There was also a skylight above and behind the model which provided a bit more edge-lighting behind her. I didn't do much in production to warm Austin, in fact the silver umbrella was probably working against me (warm color-wise) so I pumped up the warmth a bit in post. MUA was Melissa.

Pigeonholing

Unlike my last post, I'm going to (try to) resist heading off in the direction of photographic, metaphysical, esoterica this morning. I'm well caffeinated so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

People like to classify things. Photographers, being people, aren't an exception to this. It's amazing how many different genres, categories, and classifications there are in the world of shooting pictures. It's enough to make your head spin! There's fashion photography over here, glamour photography over there, and beauty photography somewhere else. You have portraits in one hand and environmental portraiture in the other. Lifestyle photographs fill one cubby-space while editorial is tossed in a different one. There are various pigeonholes for nudes, art nudes, glamour nudes, porn nudes, and more. The list goes on and on. I've barely scratched the surface with the few genres I've listed and that surface -- the one I've barely scratched -- merely includes a few of the many classifications of people-photography. The list gets really long when you add landscape, architectural, nature, and more!

Now here's the interesting part, leastwise, it's interesting to me: Sometimes, when a photographer bridges multiple classifications, i.e., he or she tears down the walls between two or more photographic pigeonholes--in a way where they suddenly become a larger pigeonhole--that photographer is, occasionally, praised for their creativity and photographic achievement. Other times, however, the shooter is smacked down for failing to adhere to the "rules" that govern a specific pigeonhole. I'm not bitching or complaining about any of this. I'm just saying. And I'm just saying because this whole process of "just saying" helps me continue to figure all this stuff out. At least, I think it does.

Some photographers firmly believe the rules are made to be broken. Others believe the rules are there for good reasons and should be conformed to. I don't know who is more right? I guess it's all about how rules are broken when they're broken and/or how they are adhered to when they are obeyed.

I guess the trick is to know when to break the rules and when to obey them. But regardless of whether rules are broken or pigeonholes are breached, a great image is a great image and that greatness always trumps the rules or makes the walls of a pigeonhole meaningless.

Shit. I think this post ventured more into the realms of Photographic Esotericism than I hoped it would.

Oh well.

The pretty girl at the top is Hannah from yesterday's shoot at a location house in Venice, Ca. I lit Hannah with two light sources: A 500ws monolight modified with a 32" Larson Hex umbrella for my mainlight, and a 300ws monolight, boomed above and behind her, modified with a small, rectangular, Photoflex softbox. Canon 5D, 28-135 IS USM, ISO 100, f/5.6 @ 160th. MUA was Melissa. And, yes, those chest puppies were naturally grown.

The Soul of a Photograph

For lack of a better subject and with too little caffeine coursing through my veins -- I will remedy that soon -- I think I'll ramble on a bit with a (semi-conscious) stream of consciousness rendering of my thoughts regarding the soul of a photograph.

Do all photographs have a soul?

Maybe. But some seem to reveal and expose their souls more then others do.

What is the soul of a photograph?

FWIW, here's what I think it is: The soul of a photograph is that thing that sets it apart in such a way that transcends the technical aspects of craft and touches its viewers in very "human" ways. Certainly, lighting, exposure, composition, subject, and more all impact the sense of a photograph having soul. But it's more than that. Probably, a lot more.

Some believe the soul of a photograph is something that exists in the light and the way light reveals itself and manipulates an image. Personally, I don't agree. I think light is a critical element, working its magic to expose and highlight a photo's soul, but the soul of a photograph does not reside in the captured light itself or the way it sings and dances within an image.

Others seem to think the soul of a photograph exists in that fleeting moment the shutter is tripped. Apparently, they believe the difference between exposing soul in a photo (or not exposing it) lies in some small fraction of a second. For instance, it's there one moment and, 1/200th of a second later, POOF! (It's gone.) I don't completely buy into this theory either, although there are aspects of it I subscribe to. Sure, capturing soul in a photo is elusive and there's certainly the right time to do it and the wrong time to do it and the difference between the right and wrong times might only be a fraction of a second, but capturing that perfect moment does not always guarantee a photograph with lots of soul.

There are those who say the soul of a photograph lies in the subject and it's the photographer's job to reveal it. I suppose this notion moves slightly closer to my thinking on the subject. But if it has merit, it begs questions like: Does a rock have soul? After all, we've all seen incredible images of inanimate objects, like rocks, where the images definitely have soul. (Think Ansel Adams.)

I think I've decided the soul of a photograph lies in the person who captures it. In other words, it's a little bit of the photographer's soul, recorded onto the image, that produces a photograph with soul. It is the photographer's human and emotional point-of-view or vision that gives a photograph its soul. But it only happens when the shooter captures that human-tainted vision in such a way that a tiny bit of the photographer's soul is successfully recorded onto a sensor chip or a film emulsion. And when it's recorded in such a way that it touches viewers the same way it touched the photographer, causing viewers to "feel" that bit of human soul that has been captured, we realize that a photograph has soul.

There are cultures whose people will not permit themselves to be photographed because they believe the process of doing so steals their souls. I think those people have it wrong. It is not their souls that are being stolen, it is bits and pieces of the photographer's soul that sometimes gets hijacked in the process of snapping pictures.

Does this mean the more successful a soul-rendering photographer might be the less soul he or she ends up retaining? I doubt it. There's something infinite about souls. And it doesn't take a very big chunk of soul, recorded onto a photograph, for others to be moved by it... to feel it's power.

And no, I haven't been smoking that funny, green stuff today. I'm just babbling for no apparent reason other than the blog is due for an update. Plus, my brain appears to have too much time on its hands.

Time for another cup of Joe.

The pretty girl at the top is Brooke from last week. I lit Brooke with two light sources: A main light using a bare-bulb modified with a silk scrim set on a separate stand and a back light modified with a small umbrella at the top of the winding staircase. MUA was MaryAnn.

A Smörgåsbord of Editorialography

We returned late last night from our too-brief, two-day, camping trip. It was a blast! It was our first time camping at Pancho Park, officially known as Leo Carrillo State Park. As Southern California's beach-side campgrounds go, Leo Carrillo *is* all that and a bag of chips! (I call Leo Carrillo SP "Pancho Park" because it's named for the actor who played Pancho in The Cisco Kid TV series of yore. Hmmm... Guess I just dated myself.) What I think makes Leo Carrillo so cool is this: Although you camp in a large, densely-wooded ravine, a short, 5-minute stroll delivers you onto a beautiful, Malibu beach!

I would give Leo Carrillo the #2 rating for SoCal beachside campgrounds. For me, though, Refugio State Beach remains Numero Uno. And a lot of people probably agree with me on that one. For the summer months, Refugio is the second-toughest campground in California to secure a reservation. Only Yosemite National Park is tougher to book. In Refugio's defense, it never had the likes of Ansel Adams snapping pictures on its grounds. Had Ansel shot some Refugio pics, well, who knows?

Anyway, the weather was picture-postcard-perfect. Even at 5:00 A.M., the temperature didn't dip below 70-something. The daytime highs were in the high-80s and it might have even moved into the low-90s. I kept my skin armored with SPF 30 so I'm in no pain as a result of some excessive exposure to the sun. Funniest thing heard at the campground was a man's voice, from a few campsites over, at about midnight: "Come back!" He yelled. "I have a condom!" I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression of the campground. It's totally family-friendly. We were sitting around the campfire when we heard that and we laughed our asses off.

Back to photography:

Over on Ron Haggart's A Photo Editor blog, the APE Man has put together a slide show showcasing the work of 297 photographers. Not long ago, Haggart put out a call for shooters to submit and, while I'm not sure how many of them did so, the APE dude gleaned 297 images for his final cut.

It's quite interesting perusing the images APE put together. It held my attention for however long it took me to go through them. And it's quite an eclectic mix of photos: Everything from whimsical snapshotery to carefully produced imagery and all stops in between. If you've thought about jumping into the editorial photography game, APE's slide show just might be a good intro; giving you a decent idea of the kind of work photo editors and art buyers might be interested in purchasing and/or commissioning.

The pretty girl at the top is Mia. The pic, another from last week's location shoot, is one of those images where I try to sneak some (lame?) artsy-ish stuff--when no one's looking--while they're paying me to capture T&A. I lit Mia with two lights: A bare bulb for my key, modified with a silk scrim, and a bare bulb boomed high and behind her, modified with a 30-degree honeycomb grid.

Oh! And before I forget, Leesa has a request. It seems she entered some contest where she had to write a short version of a personal horror story she's had dealing with a cell phone provider. Well, she's in the semi-finals! If you're anything like me and you spend a fair amount of time mindlessly wandering the web, maybe you could allocate a bit of that time and mindlessly wander over to the site I'm about to give you and vote for Leesa's cell-phone horror story? Unfortunately, they ask you to register. And they're probly gonna send you some cell-phone-related junk but, Hey! It's not like you're not already getting junk in your email, right?

Leesa says: "Okay, i'm in the semi-finals of this contest....ultimate prize is $10,000....PULLLLEAZZZZZE vote for me."

Here's the link: No-Evil.net Contest. Leesa is one of the two players in the Match 1, semi-finals. Click on "Match 1" under the semi-finals and you'll be able to read Leesa's and her opponent's tale of cell-phone evilness. BTW, it seems Leesa has arrived at the semi-finals without previously asking anyone to vote for her. She entered this contest some time ago ago and, just today, received and email informing her she's made it to the semi-finals. Cool, huh? Voting for the semi-finals round ends 4-18-08. So what are you waiting for? Register and VOTE FOR LEESA!!!!! (Please?)

Here's another shot of Mia in front of that sculpture on the wall. (Is it me? Or does this stuff of Mia look, I dunno, very 50s Germanic art nude-ish?)

Where's An Assistant When You Need One?

I was on a location shoot last week at a house in the hills between Malibu, California, and the Conejo Valley. (Oh yeah. I already said that in my last post.) As I already mentioned, the house was pretty cool: Very upscale, big, and bodacious. In the property's backyard, there's a pool, an infinity pool to be more specific, and my clients wanted me to shoot one of the pretty girls out there with the view of the valley behind her.

It was not to be a girl-in-the-water pic, which would've been cool considering it was an infinity pool, as she had just come out of hair and makeup and they didn't want that messed up since she'd be going in front of the video cameras the moment I finished.

No problem.

Except the sun was in a really bad place: It was mid-day and, while this time of year El Sol is still traversing fairly low-ish in the sky, it would be directly behind me and shining brightly in the model's face. I needed to diffuse that sunlight. I didn't want her squinting and I didn't want a lot of harsh shadows.

Fortunately, this particular production had a full lighting crew. Although I didn't have carte blanche to use them and their gear, I figured I could ask for a favor. So, I did.

"Hey guys," I asked. "You have a silk on that truck?"

They did. They had a 10' x 12' polyester silk on the truck. (Hmmm... polyester silk: an oxymoron of sorts?) Better yet, they were willing to rig it on a frame and get it up on stands. This was good news as the silk knocks the exposure down about a stop-and-a-half and I'd still be setting a strobe in front of the silk--between the model and silk, that is--to help pop her from the background. Balancing the ambient (in the background) with the exposure for the model was gonna be easy. I would have liked to have darkened the sky a bit, but with the sun directly behind me, a polarizing filter wasn't going to be much help. I have a 4" x 4" (graduated) ND filter which, in these situations, I sometimes hold (strategically) in front of my lens for effect, but I didn't have it with me. Oh well.

The wind was calm so everyone agreed the silk could be set without much danger of it being blown over.

The lighting crew made fairly fast work of assembling the frame and setting the silk. I set a monolight to a stand, between the model and the silk, and modified the strobe with a scrim. So the monolight would be my key, or main light, and that big, polyester, silk, diffusing the sun, would be soft fill.

So far so good.

But as I clicked a couple snaps, I noticed the image was kind of flat. I needed something coming in from behind the model. This is the part where this post's title comes into play-- Ya see, the PM (production manager) was now making noise about the photo set taking too long--assembling and setting the silk apparently cut into my time with the model--and the crew was on a break. Dammit! All I needed was an assistant to hold a reflector and bounce in some hard light from behind! Unfortunately, since the freaking crew was on a break and the production manager was getting impatient I resigned myself to the images being captured without highlighting from behind the model which, IMO, made the photos suffer.

Another case of time, or lack of it, trumping art. Oh. I should also mention that, about two-thirds of the way through snapping the pictures, the crew came off their break. Keeping my eye out for the impatient PM, I was going to ask if one of them could grab a reflector and bounce in some highlights when, all at once, the wind came up and filled the silk like a sail on a ship and, in spite of the fact there was over a hundred pounds of sand bags on each stand, knocked it over.

And that was that.

The pretty-girl-sans-back-lighting is Sunset... photographed at mid-day.

Okay. We're taking off for a weekend of tent-trailer camping. We'll be on the beach again, this time a bit North of Malibu. It's supposed to warm up this so it should be better weather than we had at Carpenteria State Beach a few weeks ago.

Unbelievable! I Won Something!

First, if you've notice I've been a bit slow updating it's because I've been a bit busy with work. That's a good thing, right? Work = $$$ and that's an equation I understand and appreciate when it's, uhhh... working for me... the equation, that is. In fact, all of a sudden, I find myself with lots of days booked in the coming few months!

Oh! Did I mention I won something? I guess I did in the title. Yep! I won an Urban Disguise 30 camera bag from Think Tank Photo. How'd I do that? Well, when I attended the WPPI show in Vegas a few weeks back, I dropped a business card into a contest box at Think Tank Photo's booth. Last night, when I got home, there was an email from Think Tank congratulating me for winning the camera bag. Is that cool or what? I love free stuff. I rarely win anything so I was completely surprised!

Anyway...

I've been on a location shoot for the past three days. It was at a big, expensive home nestled in the beautiful hills and mountains that separate the City of Agoura Hills and Malibu, California. If you're familiar with that area, the location house was off Kanan Road. Kanan Road is a well-known, heavily-trafficked, exceptionally scenic, twelve-mile ride from the 101 Freeway to the beach at Malibu.

It was a fun shoot and not too demanding, mostly because the production was over-crewed, the caterers, I mean craft services people, fed us quite well, and the hours were positively humane. Gigs should always be like that. They're not, of course, but I can dream, can't I?

The eye-candy at the top is Penny from the shoot I just worked. It's a no-big-deal image: A simple, meat-n-potatoes, pretty girl shot culled from the 80 or 90 shutters I clicked during the 15 or 20 minutes the producer gave me to shoot her. It's the sort of pic the companies I often work for want and expect. Of course, they don't want them in B&W. That's just my way of making myself feel like an artiste after I've shot the stuff. The MUA was Marianne who, a long, long, time ago in a galaxy far, far, away was Kelly Nichols, notable adult film performer--it was film back in those days--from the (so-called) Golden Age of Porn.

I lit Penny with two sources: A bare-bulb 500ws monolight, shot through a 3' diameter silk scrim to soften it out and a 300ws back-light, boomed above and behind her, with a 30-degree honeycomb grid to keep the light focused and controlled. Canon 5D @ ISO 100, f/8, 125. Other than the monochrome conversion (using the Channel Mixer method) I didn't modify the image much. I used the Shadow/Highlight tool and some Levels adjusting, just the slightest touch of Diffusion Glow to some of the highlights on her skin, and a bit of sharpening with the Unsharp Mask. All in all, about 5 or 10 minutes of Photoshop processing. (That always sounds weird to me-- saying I sharpened with the unsharp tool. It's like an oxymoron.)

Illuminating Shadow

Just got back from a couple of days camping on the beach. We set up the tent trailer--it belongs to my daughter and son-in-law--at Carpenteria State Beach, California, located about half-way between Ventura and Santa Barbara. Our campsite was right on the beach, maybe twenty yards from the high tide mark. It was nice. It was relaxing. It was cold and windy. Most importantly, it was fun.

I was reading an article in Smithsonian magazine today called, "Illuminating Black Holes," and, apparently, my brain performed a spontaneous, knee-jerk, word-association and, consequently, I decided I'd write something about shadows. After all, shadows can be like black holes in a photo, right? Hopefully, this will come out somewhat illuminating as it pertains to people shooting... or maybe not, we'll see.

Often, the dramatic use of shadows (when shooting naked chicks) takes the images more into the realm of art nudes. Using shadows and then converting to B&W almost definitely takes the pics into the art nude camp. Hmmmm... Nothing particularly illuminating about that observation.

Shooting the sort of glamour, tease, and T&A that I often shoot--per my clients' expectations, that is--means lighting the subjects so that nary a square inch of flesh is hidden in shadow and then overexposing certain areas of their bodies with glowing highlights (rim-lighting, edge-lighting, back-lighting, whatever) and strategically placed accent lights, i.e., lighting that, more often than not, is raking across breasts and butts. Take a look at some pics that are the norm in periodicals like Playboy, Penthouse, and other magazines of that ilk, and you'll know what I'm talking about. Rarely, will you see much use of shadow in the pretty girl pics in those rags.

I've noticed that when I've shot other stuff, like corporate, commercial, family events, and those sorts of pics, the more shadow I use in the pics the more the images are perceived as being "artsy." And artsy, I've discovered, isn't always a good thing for many people's tastes.

A lot of people, it seems, prefer bright, evenly-lit shots. The perfect snapshot of your friends and relatives, at least as perceived by your friends and relatives, will often be those brightly-and-evenly-lit images that barely have a shadow anywhere in the images. Yes, artsy, it seems, is not always the hands-down favorite of the masses. (Just like it ain't with many of my clients.)

On the other hand, if your friends and relatives happen to be art critics, photo editors, effete snobs, or even photographers--not that I'm lumping all those people together--you'll probably find the opposite is true: You'll be lauded for your creative and artistic use of shadow.

Shadows are funny that way: In photography, one person's shadow is undesirable while another person's shadow is a work of art.

I'm not really sure there's a point to this update. I'm just saying.

The shadowy pretty girl at the top is Andrea from two or three years ago.