Long time, no post

I’ve been missing for quite a while now – almost a year. There are lots of reasons, but they aren’t very interesting. Instead I’ll talk about some of the photos I’ve been taking.

I have diversified somewhat. I’m not just shooting young women sans apparel. Not that I intend to stop doing that, but I’ve found it interesting to shoot people wearing clothes, too. I believe there are other photographers who do this a lot.

I have been shooting some “fashion-like” images. It’s funny; I don’t want to admit I’ve shot fashion, because I’ve always thought of it as shallow and ephemeral. Maybe I have to admit that I’m starting to see some of the attraction? Nah, that’s not going to happen. But I will admit that my resistance to shooting clothed images has fallen dramatically. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll call them fashion shots. Don’t count on it being this year, though.

One category I have found more rewarding than I expected is “mother and child”.  There’s a clear chemistry between a mother and child, and it comes through in photographs. It doesn’t matter what the ages of mother and child are. I intend to shoot a lot more mothers and children – not just because it produces good images, but because it feels good, too. Lots of positive feedback. It’s also easier than I expected. Perhaps people like being photographed with their mothers?

I haven’t limited my shooting of pairs to those related by blood, either. I’ve shot a few models with their boyfriends or husbands (not always with the foreknowledge of the boyfriend in question…). Some boyfriends/husbands accompany their girlfriends/wives as chaperone, and end up in an image or two. Not every time, but sometimes it can add a little extra to the shoot. The male in question can feel supportive without getting stuck holding reflectors. However, if you are male, and your significant other asks you to accompany them to a shoot, don’t panic – no one has ever been forced to pose.

So I’m shooting a wider variety. That’s good. I’m still shooting artistic nudes, and fully intend to keep doing so (don’t worry – I’ll be posting more nudes soon!). Writing about this made me think: what am I not shooting? Lots of things. I’m still focussing on people. People are interesting. No landscapes. No animals (well, no animals that I will post here. I still like to visit the zoo to try out new equipment from time to time). No still-lifes. No buildings.

Most notably, I’m still shooting in a studio – I don’t shoot outside. I like the control of the studio. Maybe next year…

I can’t draw

One of the many reasons why I take photographs is because I can’t draw. Well, I can draw technical drawings, within limits, but it takes a while, and the human form isn’t amenable to being drawn that way. So I take photographs. But I like sketches, and I’d like to be able to sketch. Now I’ve found an interesting option.

PhotoShop has an array of filters that do strange things. I doubt I’ll even scratch the surface of the filters built into CS3, let alone indulge in the multitude of filters that are available for download, either for money or for free. That doesn’t mean I don’t play around sometimes. I had fun playing with the Emboss filter a while back. Doubt I’ll ever use it for real, but it does make some cute images. Maybe if I wanted to turn an image into a button for a windows interface of some kind.

 The one filter I use on every image is Sharpen – I generally use Smart Sharpen, because I prefer the results I get with it. Old-style PS users tend to stick to Unsharp Mask (never have understood why it’s called “un-sharp”, but that’s not important).

Anyway, I occasionally explore the Filters menu when I’m playing with PhotoShop. A few days ago I tried using the Find Edges filter on an image I’d converted to a semi-silhouette (I talked about semi-silhouettes a while back). The results surprised me. I got an image that looked to me exactly like it had been sketched using coloured pencils. Not necessarily the right coloured pencils, but coloured nonetheless. That is rather neat! If I converted the result to monochrome I could end up with a regular pencil sketch, but I like the coloured version. This is very exciting for someone who can’t sketch, but wants to. In the example semi-silhouette here I think it’s really interesting how the sketch shows the face as blank (because it was black in the original) – it looks as though the sketch is unfinished, as though the artist left off before sketching the face. That adds to the feeling of the image being a sketch, for me.

Having made this serendipitous discovery, I started trying it on other images. It rapidly became clear that my fondness for clean white (or black) backgrounds was a huge plus when using this technique, because it yielded a clean background – another thing that enhanced the feeling on this image being a sketch. Using the silhouette technique first isn’t a requirement (although it does produce strong edges, which doesn’t hurt). The next example isn’t a silhouette – it’s the same model, coated in olive oil (it’s good for the skin, apparently, as well as making her smell like Greek food – amusingly, we had treated ourselves to Greek tavern food before this shoot).

The background doesn’t have to be white – it can be black (I discussed the special features of white and black backgrounds another time). It is easy to make completely pure black and pure white backgrounds. That really helps when you want to produce these sketch-like images, because it means there are no edges in the background. If we use strong edge lighting we can get thick edges. This image was lit using two large slot softboxes, positioned left and right of the camera, at 90 degrees to the camera angle. This results in an image that looks like it was outlined with a blunt 6B pencil. I toned the edge down a little by using a large round brush painting pure white (another good reason to get a clean white background).

This is one of those effects you can over-use (although not as quickly as Emboss). I won’t process every image I take this way – that would be ridiculous. But it produces attractive results that mimic sketches. Suddenly I can make a kind of art I have never been able to make before, and that means a lot to me – hence this write-up.

 I think I’ll go play with some more of the filters in the PhotoShop menu…

Implied nudes – the tacky nude?

Implied nude is an important variation of nude photography. Implied nudes can be displayed in places that would be inappropriate for “real” nudes, so implied nude images can be more useful. That’s not the only reason to be interested in implied nudes. Sadly, they can be seen as a tacky alternative to real nude images. This is probably the legacy of decades of poor quality implied nude images on the front covers of cheap magazines, and the exploitation of implied nudes in advertising.

A good implied nude can be more erotic than a bad “full” nude. I think of images as expressing a statement. A bad nude image says something like “me girl – see my girly bits!” – a neanderthal lack of subtlety. A good implied image says something like “I seem to have mislaid my clothes. If I were to move a bit you might see more than you would normally. What a pity you can’t see it here” – it is a tease. It’s the difference between hitting the viewer over the head with naked breasts (an interesting image – I must consider shooting that some time), and making them imagine what is hidden. I think that’s fundamental to a good implied nude – the image must be teasing the viewer. A good implied nude stimulates the imagination; it can also be more erotically stimulating – that’s not a bad thing. Indeed, one might argue that implied nudes are more about eroticism than artistic nudes – a really good artistic nude can desexualise the image to allow the viewer to concentrate on the shapes – that doesn’t happen in an implied nude. Hiding something draws the viewer’s mind to it; exposing it removes the mystery. 

There are lots of bad implied nude images – these are the ones I was referring on the covers of cheap magazines. Images of a woman covering her breasts with her hands – what are these saying? If she didn’t want to be photographed topless, why did she pose that way? The coyness feels so fake. The same thing applies, to a lesser extent, to images where she is holding a towel or sheet to her breasts. These shots lack imagination. They taint the whole genre.

I like bold implied nude images. Images that are only barely implied (pun not intended, but I like it!). Images that look, at first glance, as though they are revealing everything; look more closely, and you realise that the crucial areas are covered (even in the original high resolution image, nothing shows). Look at the dining chair image – the young lady in question is clearly nude, and not sitting in a discreet way, yet she is showing less than she might in a bikini (well, a high-cut bikini…). This is not a subtle image. Some might take exception to it, despite the fact that it is not explicit, but then some take exception to the whole idea of taking photographs of unclothed people – makes me wonder if they are objecting to being reminded of their own sexual nature? 

Now compare that image to the classic implied nude with the heart-shaped cushion. This is more like the common idea of implied nude imagery. There is nothing wrong with this image, and I like it, but I think it lacks the impact of the dining chair image. That gave me cause to ponder for a while. Is it that the cushion is an extraneous element? Could it be that the chair is standing symbolically for a person, and the pose suggests her body wrapped around her lover – most emphatically a sexual image? Or could it be as simple as the image showing her legs apart; her legs are demurely together in the heart image? Exploring the ramifications of that question is a topic for another day. 

I think we can extend the idea of the implied nude to images that show breasts – I’m just not sure what to call them. The young lady sitting cross-legged is an example. One reason I consider this an implied nude is because the pose suggests that the viewer might see more if the point of view were swung around the left. You might argue that this is what some refer to as “tasteful” nudes – I don’t like that term, because I think it is possible for an explicit nude to be tasteful – consider Michangelo’s David. I don’t like calling this “implied nude with breasts”, either. Perhaps we need to invent a new term for it? Something like “discreet nude”? I don’t see this as a purely artistic nude, because of the implied sexual nature of the image. There are artistic elements, such as the strong curve to her spine, and the deliberate echo of the red of her lipstick and the stool, but it cannot escape the sexual insinuation. That is not a negative, it is just a distinction, of the kind that is involved in defining categories – defining categories is the splitting of increasingly fine hairs.

Perhaps I shoot implied nudes in an effort to liberate the implied nude from the tacky associations it has acquired? Nah, that’s not it. I think I shoot them because the models want them, because there’s skill involved in arranging a shot so that some things are hidden and others aren’t, and because I like the resulting images. Maybe I’m a tease at heart? I can think of much worse things to be…

Some background on studio backgrounds

When we are shooting outdoors, we have backgrounds provided for us. Oh, we pick and choose, asking the subject of the photo to move so that we can capture them against the better background, but generally speaking we have a limited choice. If we are shooting indoors, but on location, once again, our backgrounds are pretty much dictated by our environment.

Not so in the studio. Here we are in control. If we wanted a candy-striped background we can have it (I may regret saying that…). We can even shoot against a chromakey background, and swap in any background image we want. Despite that, you’ll see three colours of background in the vast majority of my studio shots: white, black, and grey. There are good reasons for this.

When I am in a studio, I want attention focussed on the beautiful woman I am shooting. Using a simple background helps – there is little to look at other than the model. I’ve heard some people refer to a white background as “catalogue shooting” – the same techniques are used when shooting items for inclusion in a catalogue.

Black and white backgrounds are easy, at least in principle. When we bring a RAW image into Photoshop, we get to specify the levels that are considered ”black” and “white”. To get a pure black background we ensure that all of the background falls below the “black” level. To get a pure white background we ensure that all of the background is above the “white” level. This only works for black and white – I can’t force a blue background buying having the background fall above or below a specific level. If the background falls between the “black” and “white” levels, it will come out as a shade of whatever colour or pattern it happens to be.

Black background

To get a pure black background, we want the background to reflect much less light than the subject. We start by moving the subject away from the background, and arranging our lights so we spill as little light onto the background as possible. The less light we get on the background, the easier it will be to make it pure black. (in the image, Phoenix is sitting on a satin finish surface, hence the reflection below her)

It helps to be using a dark (ideally black) backdrop. I’ve used a variety of offerings, including a synthetic velour, which worked well enough, but was a magnet for lint and dust. My current favourite is a fabric that can be obtained from a theatrical supplier – its technical name is black Molton, but it is known in the trade as “commando cloth” or “blackout curtaining”. It’s a black brushed cotton fabric, pre-treated with flame-retardant chemicals. It comes around 3m wide, which is plenty for my home studio, but it is easily made into any desired width – it is used for the black curtains that go behind the fancy one in a theatre, after all – and it soaks up light. It is possible to get this fabric to reflect light, but you have to work at it!

White background

A pure white background is a little more complicated. This time we want to pour the light onto the background, instead of keeping it away. I’ve found the easiest means is to dedicate two lights to illuminating the backdrop, positioning one each side, aimed about one third of the way in to the centre. Conventional wisdom has it that you light the backdrop 3 stops brighter than the subject to make it white. I have experimented, and I rather like the results I get when I run the back lights at full power (2 x 600Ws for my current lights) - the extra light wraps around the model, giving an attractive rim-lighting, and a form of silhouette, if I don’t put a light on the model directly. Tavia is demonstrating this effect.

It helps if the backdrop reflects light well (although you can get almost anything to look white with enough light – I have turned a dark brown surface into white with a LOT of light). A plain white backdrop is good – I have used white polyester, white velour, and white paper – they all work, although a smooth surface can show irritating highlights, and a patterned surface is a disaster if your background lights aren’t bright enough. I have not been able to get white Molton, even though I’m assured that it exists – there just isn’t enough call for it (unlike black Molton). I am currently using a fabric from the same theatrical fabric source – this one is intended for use as a reflective surface, and it works well – it appears to reflect about a half-stop more light than the white polyester I was using previously. The only drawback is that it has a textured surface – if it is not blasted through to white, there is a texture to deal with.

Bear in mind that having the background very bright will upset Camera Raw’s normally reasonable auto processing. That’s OK – we just need to do some unusual processing.

Camera RAW processing

Once we have the RAW image, we need to bring it into Photoshop appropriately. The instructions below refer to Adobe Camera RAW for Photoshop CS2. The instructions for CS3 are similar.

If we want a black background, we need to raise the Shadow slider until the background is completely clipped to black – hold down the Alt key (on Windows) or Command (on Mac) while moving the slider to see the clipping.

If we want a white background, we need to work with the Exposure slider. We will be clipping the background again, but this time to white.

If we are shooting a full-length shot, it can be quite difficult to get the floor under the model to clip – usually we need to compromise. I have had some success using a narrow slot box to illuminate the floor when shooting for a white background, but it’s a work-in-progress. This isn’t a problem for shots that don’t go down to the floor.

The happiness of being wrong

I wrote, some time back, about the 135mm f2L – one of Canon’s best lenses. I mentioned that I’d tried the 85mm f1.2L, and thought it to be not as good, mainly because it focussed more slowly. I was wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong, just not quite right. I had previously tried the 85mm on a 5D body. I tried it on a 1D Mark III body, and things changed. The 85mm f1.2L seems to focus more quickly on the 1D Mark III, enough so that I am no longer irritated by speed. And it seems to focus more accurately (the 1D Mark III seems to focus slightly more accurately than the 5D with most lenses) – I have not tested this objectively, but it is something I’ve noticed repeatedly. The results are crisp and sharp, very much like the 135mm f2L. It is still a heavy lens, but it doesn’t take too long to become accustomed to the balance of this lens on a 1D body.

As you may guess, I now own an 85mm f1.2L. On the 1D, with the 1.3x crop factor, the 85mm is a 110.5mm equivalent, making it a pleasant head-and-shoulders, down to half-length, lens. The 85mm has displaced the 135mm for a portion of my shooting. That’s mainly because the 135mm, on a 1D 1.3x crop, becomes a 175.5mm equivalent, which is rather too long for my studio.

The other new lens I’ve bought recently is a 35mm f1.4L. I bought this one because of a problem I’ve encountered with the venerable 24-70mm f2.8L zoom. On my 1D Mark III the 24-70mm lens does not focus well (it will be interesting to see if this is remedied by the sub-mirror assembly fix) – it can take up to 3 seconds for focus to stabilise, and that can be a long 3 seconds. What happens is that the lens judders back-and-forth around the correct focus, as though the camera is having trouble locating the exact focus. Sometimes it never does achieve acceptable focus. I looked at the focal lengths I use most often on the 24-70, and came to the conclusion that the 35mm f1.4L might be an acceptable substitute. I have a 50mm f1.4 for the slightly longer shots, and I’m happy to use 85mm instead of 70, so it was only the shorter length I needed. I rarely use 24mm, mainly because I shoot people, and 24mm is too distorting for most people photography.

I really like the 35mm f1.4L – it’s light, fast (in both senses: fast autofocus and wide aperture), and it never judders. It’s sharp. Not as sharp at the 85mm or 135mm, but that’s a high standard; it’s as sharp or sharper than the 24-70mm. Being f1.4 means that the viewfinder is bright. I would guess that Canon don’t sell a lot of these, because the average L-series lens buyer will get a 24-70 first – the 24-70mm is more flexible, and only slightly more expensive. You have to be dedicated to consider this lens. Pity, because it’s excellent.

While I’m raving about lenses, I noticed that Canon has announced that it is working on two new lenses. That seems a little odd – normally Canon announces a new lens, sometimes for availability later. This time they have announced that they are working on these lenses – I wonder if they have heard that someone else is about to announce some new lenses? Anyway, the new 200mm f2L IS and 800mm f5.6L IS are additions to the famous “white” lens range (really, it’s slightly off-white). The 800mm will probably warm the hearts of the paparazzi who make their living spying on celebrities – now they can do so at an even greater distance. Add a 1.4xTC and it’s a 1120mm f8 lens (without the TC the image is too clear…). The 200mm f2L is more interesting to me. It’s the successor to the feted 200mm f1.8 (discontinued a few years ago), adding IS, but losing half a stop. It is still a whole stop faster than the 200mm f2.8L. Judging by the photos, it will be roughly the size and shape of the 1.8 – not a lens to use for casual photography. I doubt I’ll get either of these lenses, but I could be wrong again…