Flatulent Angst

(Click to enlarge if you're so inclined.)

As with most if not all working photographers, my clients are mainly interested, more than anything else, in me getting The Shot(s). No revelation or epiphany there: All paying photography clients want that.  But some of them aren't as trusting as others in terms of allowing their photographers to decide if/when The Shot(s) are captured.  (Even if some of them wouldn't know it if The Shot(s) were captured and they were hit in the face with them... by "hit in the face with them," I mean The Shot(s) are shown to them, in their faces, and they still can't accept that they are what they are-- i.e., that they are The Shot(s) they want/need.)

My favorite clients are those who -- be it because of our long-term relationships or via my reputation, (which is why they hired me, duh) -- trust that if/when I capture the right shot or shots, and I tell them specifically that I have done so,  they accept my judgment in the matter. My best clients are aware that once I've captured The Shot(s),  everything else I shoot, for the most part, is probably going to be photo-chaff.  (We all know what photo-chaff is, right?  It's what most of us shoot most, more so than ever since the advent of digital.)

Anyway, those are the sorts of clients I love working for best! They trust me to know when I've snapped The Shot(s). They trust my aesthetic judgment.  They might ask me a few times if I'm sure I have The Shot(s) -- "Jimmy, are you sure you've got what we need?" -- because they know that, later on, if its discovered my judgment was in error, there's not much that can be done about it short of excessive turd polishing or a re-shoot, and that's not going to happen. (Money and all.) But they trust me anyway. 

Then I have clients who, to varying degrees, don't seem to trust my ability to judge when I've gotten The Shot(s). These are clients who want me to continue shooting, shooting a lot, even after I've told them, (probably a couple of times, possibly repeatedly) that I've got the The Shot(s).  Obviously, they are so into quantity, perhaps more so than quality, and it seems to me like they don't believe they've gotten their money's worth (regarding the model or myself) until we've shot a gazillion or so frames which I know are never going to be used for anything other than lining a cyber trash bin.

Occasionally, I've gotten so perturbed by this I suggested that next time we shoot, they bring along someone from their art department or whoever does their graphic/art work to make The Shot(s) call, that is, whether we have what's needed or not.   That's not going to happen, of course.  Why? Well, first off because it's another person on the set they'll need to pay. Second, they'll be paying that person to sit around and do little to nothing beyond possibly annoying me and acting as if they're in charge of both the models and myself while we're shooting...  Too many cooks and all that. I've heard wedding shooters complaining about mothers of the brides (or some uncle of the bride who is a hobby photographer) overtly poking their noses into the photo process and becoming impediments to getting the shots.  It's kind of like that.

I'm not writing this because there's some special lesson to be learned. It is what it is and sometimes what it is (on this blog) is just me relieving myself of a bit of flatulent angst.

The pretty girl at the top is Abby. Snapped it with two lights: a 5' Photoflex Octo for a main and a small umbrella, behind her to the right and up kind of high. Not a lot of processing. It's probably 90% or 95% SOoC. (Straight Out of Camera)

Nudity and Rubber Ducky PJs

Not my usual but shooting outside my usual has its own rewards. Click to enlarge.

Much like it's said, "Man does not live by bread alone," this man does not live by pretty girl shooting alone. I hope that doesn't burst any perception bubbles some of you may have about me, but my interests in photography extend well beyond pretty girl shooting. Heck. I sometimes even shoot stuff that isn't of a standard, pretty-girl-shooting nature.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I am, in any way, disenchanted with pretty girl shooting. I'm not. But the steady diet of it, not so much in terms of shooting but in writing about it, wears a bit thin at times. Well, perhaps "wearing thin" isn't a good way to describe my feelings about this: It's more like it feels restrictive and inhibiting.

But now I've done something about that!  And I feel better already!  (Cue the marching band music.)

You see, in order for me to blog about photography stuff that is NOT within the confines of my customary pretty girl shooting, I've resurrected a blog I let die back in March of 2009. It's called, "I, Shootist," and by reviving it I can now blog about nearly anything, photography-wise, without being concerned that this blog, this Pretty Girl Shooter blog, may be an inappropriate place to do so. (Which it often may be.)

So, if you're at all interested in reading what I might have to say about photography beyond the focus of this blog, check out I, Shootist. 

The diptych at the top is a no-big-deal example of my work outside of my customary work, but it's an example that remains appropriate for this blog.  (Mostly because it contains a pretty girl and nudity, in addition to the rubber ducky PJs.)  But trust me when I tell you, there's plenty of other stuff I love shooting and writing about that would not be appropriate to this blog. Stuff that doesn't include nudity and rubber ducky PJs or nudity and anything else. And for that stuff, I now have an avenue for sharing and writing about it on my newly resurrected I, Shootist blog cuz I'm all about shooting and sharing and writing... and stuff.

Glamour/Nude Posing Guides *UPDATED*

Soon after I released my first eBook, Guerrilla Glamour, a couple of my eBook's resellers asked me if I might put together a posing guide.  They thought it might be a very popular seller. I never did. Obviously, if I had, I would have been promoting it.  It wasn't that I was reluctant to author a glamor posing guide because I didn't think it was a good idea. I thought it was a great idea! I simply didn't have the time, at the time, to do it... to do it right.

I've revisited the idea of a posing guide a few times since but, somehow, I've never managed to motivate myself enough to get busy on one. Now, it seems the idea of me, JimmyD, authoring a posing guide is a moot point. (I love that word-- moot.) You see, photographer Dan Hostettler of Studio Prague has beaten me to the punch. (Not that I ever managed to even begin punching out a posing guide.) And he not only has one posing guide relevant to photographers interested in shooting glamour and nude, he has three of them!

You might be thinking that a guy from Prague, Czechoslovakia, wouldn't be your first choice for a posing guide or most any other eBook. After all, they don't speak English in Czechoslovakia. Well, most people don't. But Dan does and, I'm sure, so do a fair amount of others over there... although it's not like English is spoken everywhere in Czechoslovakia. Leastwise, I don't think it is.

But even if Dan didn't speak much English, which he does, fluently in fact, it wouldn't be a problem because the poses in his posing guides aren't so much described as they are shown! Illustrated! With photos!  With terrific photos! And with a beautiful model!  A very beautiful model! They are visual guides, not text guides. And Dan's covered glamour and nude posing from A to Z. (I'm not sure what particular pose begins with a "Z" but you get what I'm saying.)

Dan has three, terrific posing guides available. If you're interested in learning more about any or all of them, just click on their titles, which I'm now going to share with you below:

Essential Glamour Poses

Facial Expressions in Nude Modeling

Implied Nude Poses

Update:  No sooner do I get this post up than I receive a message from Dan of Studio Prague. (I have no idea what time it is in Czechoslovakia, which isn't a country it turns out, but I'll get to that in a moment.) So, regardless of what time it is in Prague, let me set the record straight on a couple of things that aren't particularly time sensitive but I'll jump on them right away:

First, Dan isn't a Czech. He's Swiss. Wait a minute. Let me back up...

First, there is no Czechoslovakia any longer. It's the Czech Republic and apparently it's been the Czech Republic for about twenty years now. (I guess I should pay closer attention to current affairs, not that something that happened twenty years ago is current.)  If my knowledge of history serves me correctly, there wasn't a Czechoslovakia until after World War One when it was created by... I'm not sure who. Anyway, it seems the nation formerly called Czechoslovakia (and more formerly called something else, although I don't know what) was fairly short-lived, historically. Like only for about 70 years or so which, in terms of European history, isn't a very long time. (Seventy years of American history, of course, would represent a much greater percentage unless you include the history of Native Americans but they weren't big on writing their history down like the Europeans have been so, who knows what that percentage might be?)

Second, as I first mentioned first but now I'll properly mention second, Dan isn't Czech. He's Swiss, but he lives in Czechoslo I mean the Czech Republic. Which means, I guess, he's not only a terrific photographer based in Prague, but he also knows a lot about army knives, cheese with holes in it, and chocolate.

Okay. Whew! I'm much relieved to have straightened all this Czech/Swiss/Czechoslovakia stuff out. Now, I return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Your Lighting Isn't Static Even When It Is

I never treat my lighting setups as if they are static.  They usually are static in terms of I rarely move my lights around once they're set. But in other ways, they're not static because my models don't have to remain static. I can move them around with simple verbal directions, re-orienting them in different ways to the (static) lighting I've set.

For glam, I mostly light in ways that act as if my models will remain perpendicular to my camera. That, of course, doesn't mean my models will remain perpendicular to my camera. I can orient them, all of them or portions of them, in various ways to my lights. I can even orient them in ways where one of my kickers sort of becomes my main light and my main light becomes a fill light while my other kicker remains a kicker. (If that makes sense.)

By the way, if you're not sure what I mean by a "kicker," kickers are what I call the lights I use to produce specular highlights, edge lights, rim lights, simple highlights, whatever you prefer calling them. I just call them kickers. Others might call them something else. What's in a name, right?

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you're likely aware I mostly prefer three-light setups for glamour: a main light plus two kickers, either side, from slightly behind. That's my go-to glamour lighting. It's simple and efficient to set up and use. (I'm all about simple and efficient.) It has the added benefit of producing the kinds of results my clients prefer, as lacking in creativity as my clients often tend to be. But hey! They're writing the checks. My job is to deliver what they want. If they want something different, which they rarely do, they simply tell me what that is... which again, is a rare occurrence. 

As lacking in creativity as many or most of my clients might be, one thing they do know is what works.  Either that or they employ others, besides myself, who know what works. Since they're in the business of using glamour and tease photos of pretty girls to produce revenue, they are rarely interested in experimenting or altering what they already know works. Money on the line sometimes has a way of making people less daring, less willing to go outside the box whatever box it is... assuming you subscribe to all that "box" stuff, which I don't.

I sometimes see other photographers being a bit too cautious, leastwise in my opinion, about moving models around within the confines of their perfectly planned lighting.  Leastwise, in their minds it's perfect. Personally, I think that's a big mistake. A very limiting mistake. Why? Because I know some of my best photos often get snapped when my models aren't perfectly aligned with my so-called (self-delusional)  perfect lighting. (There's no such thing as perfect lighting, IMO. But that's, perhaps, a subject for another blog update.)

I know a photographer, another pretty girl shooter, who had a large, power-operated, turntable in his studio. Sort of like a big Lazy Susan, if you know what a Lazy Susan is. He'd set his lighting, have his models stand on top of the big Lazy Susan, and then have it slowly spin and turn as he snapped away, all the while directing his models to assume different poses. He could even put a chair, a couch, or other some other piece of furniture on top of the turntable with his models lying or seated on that stuff. Yeah. It was a fairly large and heavy-duty turntable. I have no idea what it cost but I'll bet it wasn't cheap.

Every shot he snapped had his models oriented differently to his lights. He's a very successful pretty girl shooter, by the way. His work, at one time or another, has been featured in just about every higher-end men's magazine, both here and abroad, that features glamour images of beautiful women in various stages of dress and undress.

I used to envy him for his turntable, mostly because I saw how simple and efficient it made the process of re-orienting models to static lights, making it all so much more dynamic with the simple push of the turntable's power button.

I forget the name of the pretty girl at the top. (Click to enlarge.) I snapped it about 6 months or so ago and I'm too lazy to dig through my stuff to find her name. As you can see, I partially re-oriented her so that my kicker, camera-left, became something of a main light for her face -- not really but kind of -- but remained a kicker for the rest of her body.

Are You Trying Too Hard to Make Great Photos?

Just about every day, I look at a lot of photos snapped by a lot of other photographers. I'm not just referring to other pretty girl shooters, but all kinds of photographers.  And I don't merely look at the work of photographers who are particularly notable for their photography. I expect those people to consistently show good work.  I like viewing the work of all kinds of photographers who are at all points along the learning curve. Often enough, I've been inspired by beginners, not simply by the very experienced shooters.

When I view the work of someone who is at the early stages of their photographic development (film pun intended) I'm not so much looking at the technical merits of their photos. (Or lack of them.)  After all, they are people who are just starting out. As such, they haven't amassed much experience. Of course their images are going to be  rough around the edges, technically speaking. Instead, what I'm checking out is how their eyes, their photographic eyes, are revealed in their images regardless of the technical expertise the images reveal.

A good eye, regardless of experience and level of technical skill, will most always reveal itself whether the person behind the camera is a beginner or someone much more advanced. It's a natural thing that the technical stuff, even when it's not yet where it should be or will be, can't hide.That's not to say a naturally good eye won't develop and get better with time, practice, and experience, it will, but you can often spot a good eye in the work of newer photographers even it's not yet developed. I suppose it's one of those diamond in the rough kinds of things.

One observation I've made, however, is that more than a few newer photographers seem very impatient to produce stand-out work. They seem to be working too hard to show off, i.e., to make great photos -- be it with the camera or in post-production -- rather than being focused on learning how to consistently produce good work. Notice I said, "good work," and not great work.  There's nothing wrong with aspiring to produce great work, but it shouldn't be at the expense of routinely and consistently producing good work.

If you're personally satisfied snapping one great photo out of hundreds and hundreds of not particularly good photos, I guess what I'm saying isn't for you. But if you're working to consistently produce good work, I think you'll find the number of great photos you snap (when you reach a level where you're shooting hundreds and hundreds of good photos) will be significantly increased. By the way, when I say "great photos" I'm not talking about images destined to become iconic or legendary. I'm simply referring to photos that are better than good. Sure, that's a subjective thing, but I think (leastwise, I hope) you get what I'm saying.

So here's my advice, a bit of FYI or however you want to take it: Some of you should quit trying so hard to produce an occasionally great photo (however you're trying to do that or with whatever tricks and gimmicks you're throwing at your photos in order to do that) because there's a good chance you're doing so at the expense of producing many more good photos. If you focus on consistently snapping good photos, those great photos will follow suit and they will do so more often.

Here's a little more advice, FYI, whatever: Even when you're consistently producing good photos, you might not end up with as many great photos as you'd like or had hoped for. Sorry, but that's just how this photography thing works. When it comes to great photos, more than a small amount of serendipity often needs to take place to produce those great photos. The serendipity factor is why beginners sometimes produce great photos, even those who barely know WTF they're doing. But if you're routinely and regularly producing good work, you'll give serendipity a much better chance to work its magic.

The pretty girl at the top is Sunny. (Click it to enlarge it.) It's certainly not a great photo but it's a good photo given its intended purpose.  At the risk of sounding a bit full of myself, I can consistently shoot good photos day in, day out, every day if need be. *That* ability is what gets me hired, rather than the occasional great photo I might snap. Consistency should be your goal without relying on serendipity. It takes a while to learn (and practice at) becoming a photographer who can produce good work on demand just about whenever it's demanded. There's no magic involved. Special natural-born talents aren't required. It's simply a product of learning, practicing, experience, and skill, which means anyone, if they're willing to invest what it takes to do so, can become a photographer who is a consistently good photographer.

Note: I have a special discount going on with my eBooks right now. The discounts are actually for a promo Ed Verosky put together to go with his latest newsletter, but even if you don't get Ed's newsletter, feel free to take advantage of the discounts anyway.  (I recommend signing up for Ed's free newsletter-- I think you'll enjoy it and your photography may benefit from it as well.)

I'm offering 25% off my Guerrilla Glamour, Guerrilla Headshots, and Zen and the Art of Portrait Photography eBooks. Click the graphic (in the right-hand column) for the eBook you're interested in purchasing. The link will land you on my sell page. When you get there, click to buy and you'll be magically transported to a shopping cart. There's a place on the shopping cart for you to enter a discount code. Use the code, edsale and $2.50 will be deducted off your purchase price for any of my three eBooks I mentioned above. I also set up a 10% discount on my recently released Flash-Free Portrait Photography book. For that one, use the discount code, flashfree and $1 will be automatically deducted from your purchase price. These discounts are ongoing until this Sunday at midnight, 09-01-13.

Another Note: A personal friend of mine, a photographer named Kirk (no relation to the captain of the Enterprise-- Kirk is my friend's first name) will be the instructor of an upcoming photography education class at Calumet University's Los Angeles campus. The class is called "Understanding Lighting for Making Great Portraits." (Click the title I just provided to learn more.) Kirk's class will be held on September 7, 2013.  And yeah, I'm well aware Calumet isn't a real university and its "campus" is a large retail photography store but that doesn't really matter. There are many ways to engage in formal education and they don't all take place at actual colleges or universities.  If you're an LA area photographer looking for a course like this or you think it may benefit you, check it out!

Perimeter Scanning Your Frame

We all know that old adage about the devil being in the details. It's something that applies (in big ways) in photography. I'm sometimes asked to critique other photographers' images, usually less experienced photographers, and when I do I often finding myself having something to say about an unsightly detail or two in the images. Those details almost always subtract points from the photo's overall score. (Not that I provide a numerical score, but you get what I'm saying.)

If you're a red-blooded straight guy shooting pretty female models, it can be easy to miss details because, since you're one of those guys, you're eye is automatically and continually drawn to certain areas of your frames where the model resides.

I'm as guilty of that as anyone. You know, me being a red-blooded straight guy and all. But let's say you're a red-blooded guy of another sort and you're shooting pretty male models. Same problem I'm guessing. In fact, the same problem probably occurs if you're a red-blooded female photographer with an alternate life-style and you're shooting  pretty female models. It's all about the laws of attraction and how those laws govern or attract where our eyes tend to be drawn.

But none of that means you can't overcome the effects of drawn-eye. Drawn-eye, in my opinion, can be a big problem when it comes to overlooking details in your photo while shooting pretty models.

So here's a tip to help you reduce the possible negative effects of drawn-eye. It's something I forced taught myself to do quite a few years ago and it took a while, requiring conscious effort, until it became nearly automatic for me to do this. (Please note what I'm about tell you doesn't guarantee you'll miss unwanted details you should have spotted, but I believe it will definitely reduce their occurrence.)

Instead of continuing to allow my natural tendency to miss some details as a result of drawn-eye, I began consciously making myself first look to the upper-left corner of the frame and then move my eye around, counter-clockwise, the perimeter of the frame. It probably doesn't matter if you move your eye counter-clockwise or clock-wise although since we read left-to-right, it seems to me that moving your eye right-to-left helps you to better notice things that shouldn't be in the frame or that need some adjustment. (Proofreaders often read copy right-to-left in order to better spot errors and typos.)

After I've done my counter-clockwise perimeter scan, I move my eye to the top of my model's head and then scan around the perimeter of her body, face, form, whatever parts of my model that are revealed in my frame. I also perform this eye-scan in a counter-clockwise way. While this might seem like a lot of eyeball scanning, I should note that I do it very quickly, like in a second or two. I should also note that, when I'm shooting a set of images where the model remains in the same spot, I only have to perform the perimeter-of-the-frame scan a few times in order to be fairly confident there isn't something there that shouldn't be there or that needs my attention. Leastwise, assuming nothing changes in those outer areas of the frame while I'm shooting.

It took a while for this scanning stuff to become automatic for me but it finally did. After a while, I barely noticed I was performing the frame scans. Give it a try. You'll be surprised how quickly and easily you get used to scanning the frame this way in your viewfinder. I can't say this has meant I never miss things in my viewfinder I should have spotted, but I'll bet the times I miss those details has been reduced by quite a bit.

The pretty girl at the top is Jennifer. Snapped it with a Canon 85mm f/1.8 prime on my 5D. ISO 100, f/7 at 125th sec. Here's the lighting setup which I just happen to have a photo of.  I was shooting in an auto impound garage. As you can see, it's a pretty basic and simple 3-light setup with a reflector added for a bit of fill.  Photoflex Medium Octo for my main plus two shoot-thru umbrellas for kickers. You can click either photo for larger views.