Betcee, First Visit, Page 2

Unaware that I'm overexposing these film images, we move on to a slightly different setup.

We move to the floor. Sadly, without the digital camera, I can't check the lighting. But you can see the basic concept -- a main light to the left of the camera, a little fill light on the right, and a splash of light on the backdrop behind.

Betcee looks sultry in these images.

Here's a good example of the benefits of using the digital camera to "proof" the lighting. I don't mind that half of Betcee's face is in shadow, but I would prefer to have the background lit behind, and here the background light is a little off.

Below are two images, and the up light is just wrong. Betcee's face is mesmerizing, and these images don't do her justice.

We move into the shower. It's funny -- the sepia toning produces a color for the tiles that is very close to its real color.

My widest wide angle lens for the film camera is roughly the equivalent of a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera.

In this case, the unintended effect of the overexposed negatives is not all that pleasing.

Good tonality is the Holy Grail of high technical quality photography. Those of us who care go to a lot of effort to achieve perfect tones in our images. We perform tests, we calculate exposure carefully, we develop each negative with tight controls and customized methods, we select top quality materials, and so forth.

The most critical mistake one can make is failing to determine & set the correct exposure. Like I did.

Betcee is beautiful, hard working, and a photographer's dream. I am so disappointed that the digital camera failed at this critical time and that I messed up the film images.

We had a good time. She had a free day the day after this sitting, and I played tour guide. Betcee had a few additional sittings the next few days and was then off to points further south afterwards.

Fortunately, Betcee enjoyed her visit to Portland and was successful in finding an interesting variety of work here. She promises to return shortly, and I'm sure we'll work together again then.

In all, an interesting sitting. I enjoyed watching Jay work with Betcee -- he did well with little portable flood lights and with my natural furniture arrangements. Betcee is breath-taking: not only is she beautiful & sultry, she moves well and is fun to be around. I absolutely look forward to working with her again, hopefully soon.

But my technical problems were horrible. After this sitting, I got rid of that old digital camera & replaced it with a new one -- one that supports an accessory that allows the firing of strobes. I'll talk to that when I present the images from the next sitting. I compounded the problem with incorrectly set exposures -- the resulting effect was unintended but occasionally interesting.

Well, on the plus side, I find mistakes instructive, and these were. Since part of the objective for this web site is to share the photographic experience, I have decided to show you these images, even though they aren't really up to my quality standards. I hope you like them.