This is the same picture from the previous page.  I wanted to talk a bit about it.

Clearly, I wanted to work with Tatyana.  After viewing her site, I e-mailed her, told her about my interest, and gave her the URL for my site.  She looked my site over, and contacted me when she was planning a trip through this area.  

What I saw when I visited her site:  I saw a model with a fine figure and luminous skin.  So, I wanted to craft lighting that would make her skin glow, which was a theme for our whole sitting.  Glowing skin requires soft lighting and some shadows.

This first set-up:  I put a small soft box to Tatyana's left, a little in front of her, and I put a strip soft box to Tatyana's right, a little behind her, to create the rim light on her exposed hip.  Now, I've wanted to do this for a long time -- the lighting from behind the model is very similar to the front lighting.  I know it's a bit of a cliché, but I like the richness of the image from the front & from behind.  I especially like the "glow" on Tatyana's cheeks (pun intended).

Despite having photographed many dozens of women, I guess I'm still shy.  When working with a model for the first time, I like to start slow, like this -- with the model holding a cloth in front of herself, but showing enough skin to demonstrate that she is nude underneath the cloth.  It's a "less is more" approach that stimulates the brain -- I find it very exciting.  Often, we use a towel, but this time, we had some beautiful green satin cloth, which Tatyana really liked.  She played with it for our first few pictures...

The Rope:  When thinking about Tatyana's smooth skin, I wanted to juxtapose it with some other textures.  I ask Tatyana to pose with a rope I had lying about:

The Bench:  Okay -- we covered Tatyana with a cloth and then with a rope, and we were almost halfway through our sitting.  It was time to stop hiding Tatyana's magnificent figure.  I have this small, mission-style bench, and for our next several pictures, Tatyana sat on it.  The bench is small, and when Tatyana arranged her legs on top of it, there's wasn't much space left over.  I like this -- it keeps the model occupied and gives her something to do with her hands.  After adjusting the lights slightly, we made several images.

And this image is my absolute favorite from our sitting.  I love the interplay of light & shadow, creating that "skin glow" I was seeking.  I like the dreaming expression on Tatyana's face.  And speaking of her face -- it's often difficult to find a lighting set-up that works well for both the figure & the face; this one does.  Think about it -- if she was looking towards the camera, what would her face look like; how would it be lit?

I like the exposed neck.  And I think this image compliments Tatyana's fine figure.  I like the subtle interplay of light & shadow around her navel.  Like I said -- my favorite.

More Bench Pictures:

This picture above is my second favorite image from this sitting.

Okay, here's a weird thing of mine -- I usually tell models posing for me to avoid poses where a limb is pointing towards the camera.  I think it makes that limb look stubby.  Look at Tatyana's left thigh, above -- although it isn't a big thing and doesn't detract from this picture much, I just don't like the position of her thigh.  

But I've got to admit that I like the variety of lighting across her breasts.

Meditation:  After a while, sitting on the hard bench started to become uncomfortable.  So, we moved on.  We were almost done.  (I use a 6x7 camera, with 10 exposures on a roll, and nearly all of my sittings are 10 rolls, because 10 is the maximum number of rolls I can develop at once with my Jobo film processor).  I remember that I was feeling pretty good about the exposures we had already made, so I was inclined to experiment a bit more.  So, I moved the small soft box almost directly above Tatyana, had her sat of the floor, and let the light flow over her like a waterfall.  The feeling was very peaceful & meditative for me.  Look:

So, how'd we do?