Defenz, Agony

Lovely Agony: http://www.modelmayhem.com/382892
Defenz Mechanizm: http://www.modelmayhem.com/583507

Isolation

people want to constantly take. I have to constantly get away from the masses of people. They- even when they don't know my name, they want to take my life, my money, my blood, my innocence.

Sarah Mae

This is Sarah Mae MM#32165 and shes one of the best models I have ever worked with.

Portraiture With One Light

Shooting a 3/4 portrait with one light

A 3/4 portrait is anything where you cut off the subjects knees.

There are endless ways of lighting this but im going to talk about shooting and lighting this with one light indoors against a backdrop.

The trick is the single shadow. When you cast light on the subject/model, a shadow is going to fall. You dont want this shadow in your shot, so pull the model away from the wall enough so she doesnt block any light from the wall. here’s some examples

Lighting from above: if you hang a softbox like i have always done, bring the model a couple feet from the wall, and position the softbox so it throws a pleasant light on the model and some light on the backdrop as well. There should be no shadow on the backdrop. The light on the backdrop should be about half that of the metered light on the model’s face. just use your best guess. If you wanna meter it, fine. This will also give you a nice fall off of light around the edges of the image frame on the backdrop. You wont need to edit this image. But you need a reflector as well. Put it below the models hips, just above the knees.

Lighting from an angle: if you light from the side or 45 degrees, do the same as above until there is no shadow. throw a reflector in on the opposite side just out of camera frame. use common sense.

Enjoy.

Tuned Out

Where shall i settle down? Miami? Philly? Brooklyn (no)? LA (no)?

Today I'm thinkin of miami of all god forsaken places. But miami has some finer points. it attracts people, its rich and glamorous, i could stay right in miami and be in florida, not far from my home town of st pete, and have a strong industry right there. I cant say what industry is like in miami but - i just might like being down there, and i could work i think. more than here for damn sure. and probably more than in ny and its slightly cheaper perhaps. the key is to know the area, how to live, where to live and where not to be. I have to get my tools and resources all in line and make it happen. if it screws up its just a $25 train ride back to st pete for a nice rest.

amazing.

I really talked myself into this miami thing didnt i?

do or do not

we dont want to go astray when we follow our hearts. i think where the problem comes in is when we follow our heart only half way

we have to have work that is purely technical and work that is purely experimental and work that is purely heart.

in this way, we are always acting in one mind and not divided. a house divided against itself can not stand.

its best to have several houses and not try and make your house part tent, part high rise and part cottage. we have to learn of each one in itself first.

i suppose eventually its possible to be a master of the various building techniques and to combine the best of each into several master works just as a truely masterful architect would do.

___

i have a shoot tonight. it causes me some trepidation i must admit. i dont have a fixed method. i feel im falling too often in that part of my mind that is divided.

i think the reason for this is because now, i know how to make a great images but i dont have the resources

i have to step back and realize what i have, and use that and work within the limitions and tools i have and let that be my realm, and nurture singleness of mind in my work

everything takes some work. otherwise, there is chaos.

what is porn?

hey buddies - so im really restless.

What is porn? I ask myself because i want to know what im shooting, and what i will be taken as, with a given body of work. Porn is an industry. Thats what porn is. Its material that is meant for making money off of a preexisting market where the goal is to create and sell work that fits a variety of categories. we all know what our personal impression of porn is, usually that of a combination of arousal and disgust. We see it as representing the act of sex in a graphic way meant to appeal to our basic vulnerabilities of the eyes and passions that are triggered and leading to fantasy, masturbation and satisfaction by aiding in the psyco-physical requirements for a self or co-induced orgasm.

But what is porn? something that makes you cum? thats very vague and subjective and doesnt define anything.

In nature, what is it that makes us sexually aroused? usually strong traits in the opposite sex that exhibit sexual availability. Its these traits that are the precursor the what constitutes porn to the industry.

Lets look first at swimsuit glam. The images are lit from every side, and you can see nothing but miles of curves, skin, bright eyes, thick natural hair, big plump boobs, legs open, tiny piece of material covering the labia, back arched direct eye contact, a touch of sass or happy expression to say - "im all yours come and get me"

porn is not much different. traditional porn was perfected with penthouse and perhaps playboy, using every trick in the book to the advantage of making a girl look perfect, youthful, glowingly healthy and vibrant, with the added element of bare nipples, crotch and ass. The expression is more subdued, and secondary, and not so direct. There is a sense of voyeurism.

what is art? so since we know what porn is now, we can more easily say what art is. i would like to state here that art is anything that is original and not designed for an industry, but out of a personal emotional connection with the subject and process. Art can become an element of industry, but industry cannot become art.

Therefore, porn can be made of art, if that art is taken from the art realm and placed into a porn market, but that which is designed for the market of pornography, will always be... porn... and nothing more.

Some might argue that the use their artistic energy to make their porn. But the fact that their motivation is to make industry pornography qualifies their work as impersonal and dictated by a cold clinical industry and negates any sincerity that is drawn upon to create the said works.

To shoot in "bulk" is not art.
Portraiture is not art.
Beauty shots are not art.
Glamour is not art.
Pop art... is rarely but sometimes art.

these are all industry scenarios and are driven by public demand and not the unction of the artist.

So if i make images that are erotic, that show nudity, every angle and part of a body, in all types of positions and expressions, it can't be called porn if im not selling it to the horny masses. There is a world called erotic art... and its different. lets talk about it.

Erotic art. This is material that is not always nude, but usually has at least some nude parts that are considered 18+. It is almost always the master works of an artist. I'm developing just recently some concepts that i feel will help to bring impact to my erotic art as i begin to collect works in this realm. The lighting is a matter of taste but has its tendancies to be less than direct. There is an air of mystirium and hard to get me attitude in the frames. It requires much effort on the behalf of the viewer. Usually a few frames are needed to complete an idea thats being presented, to develop a story line or setting and bring the viewer in, creating questions and tension. The shots are usually much closer, with shorter depth of field, and mixes of blur and motion and focus, with tendancies by the same right, to utilize wide angle establishing shots.

and now i am going to rest. I feel ive said what i set out to say. please forgive my strange habit of capitalizations and intentional use of words that are not in the dictionary.

man i need my glasses

goin to bed now. always editing and layin around procrastinating, burstin spontaneously into sporatic editing. the mac book saved my life and so did the person who gave it to me. i owe him lots n lots.

meeting wth awesome girl today when i wake up. its like 8:30am. im about to rest/sleep and then rise. supposed to go do some beachy stuff. i just hope i can get my head together, and my dead eyes together.

not a good time to not have a lot of money. ill just make up for it by shooting a lot.

img357

ongoing life -

im happy

something to do

to try something again

no hurry

its like resting, to wait, while fixing what is broken, what was never whole, so how can we say its degraded. our lives, they are still becoming.

sprocket scanner suction cups and rods

sitting in my laboratory, i was playing with some suction cups and trying to find new ways of using them in life. I came up with this modification for clamping objects to glass. I soon realized i could use it on my scanner to hold film flat while not covering the sprocket holes. this will be useful for my sprocket hole photography. I may have to be strategic about where i place the rods in the scan however, and if all else fails, i can use photoshop to remove evidence of the rods. the rods are what used to be hooks on the suction cups used perhaps for hanging a basket in the shower.