Kira Dance!

While I enjoyed working with Kira in the living room in situ, I'd have to say that that is not really my style. I like to create light "sculptures" & place a figure in it; I like to craft special lighting for specific figures in an attempt to evoke a specific image concept. That is my strength. Those images are the kinds I most like to look at and the kind I most like to make.

For this sitting, I planned to try three different things: utilizing the house & room furniture (done in the previous page), some studio images using some lighting ideas I want to try (this page), and for the finale, Kira promised to get into the shower with me & get wet (next page).

Sittings are often three ring circuses -- there's a lot going on. Basically, I'm trying to manage the technical aspects of the sitting (lighting placement, background choices, props if any, exposure, composition), and I'm trying to manage the relationship & direction with the model.

So, at the start of the setup, I'm usually concentrating on getting the lights placed correctly. This time can be fairly boring for the model, because the technical aspects consume my attention, and they've got to stand there while I position the lights precisely.

Here, we see Kira in a semi-classic lighting setup. This isn't quite what I had in mind. Ever since Victoria's third sitting, I've been experimenting with adding an uplight to certain setups, and I want to do that here. I don't remember whether the uplight was set up for this exposure, but if it was, it missed.

(You can see from her expression that Kira wasn't very engaged at this point -- that's okay, I'm just checking the lighting for now. Usually I don't show these test images, but I thought I would this time, because it can be instructive).

Now that's the lighting I was looking for! You can see the contribution of the uplight -- compare that with image above.
We are still in testing-the-lighting mode. I have whole house audio, and for this sitting I'm playing a playlist of New Age percussion songs from various artists in my collection. I'm afraid I don't remember the artists' names nor the name of the songs, but I tend to think of the songs by the images they inspire in my head. For most of this testing-the-lighting phase, we were listening to the "Jellyfish Floating In The Coral Reef Forest" music, but right around now, that song ended, and we started to listen to the "Seduction At The Oasis" song. Ever so slightly, Kira starts to move her hips in time with the song.

I ask her to dance, and that's all the encouragement she needs. She dances. She dances beautifully!

I did not know this about Kira, but she dances really, really well.

(The new digital camera does have a motion-capture feature, but I didn't think of it at the time. You should see Kira dance!)

Kira gets lost in her dance, and I am enthralled. She dances to several songs, including the "Running Through The Amazon Jungle" song, the "Goofy Burro In The Desert" song, the "Tribe Builds The Community Through Drums" song, and others.

Kira dances non-stop. I put up the canvas background for a little variety.
Here's the exception that proves the rule. Normally, I dislike photographs were the model is looking outside the image frame. I prefer that the model give the camera eye contact, or that she is looking at something in the image frame, or that she closes her eyes. When a model is looking elsewhere, I wonder what she is looking at, why she isn't involved in the image making process, whether the chemistry between model & photographer is off, etc. Also, when a model chooses to look off in the distance, there's often a blank expression on her face; I prefer images where the model looks like she's thinking about something. Usually, I think having the model look outside the image is distracting.
In this case, I pulled in a full length mirror, positioned to my right. The lighting is perfect, but only if Kira is positioned in the light so that the uplight can do its magic, and the mirror let's Kira see where the uplight is. Here, she is looking at her reflection, making sure the light is good.

So, she is involved; the chemistry is still there; and she looks terrific. For those reasons, I don't mind the loss of eye contact.

Okay, she's checking her reflection again. I found that models really like having the mirror available to aid in their posing, but because it tends to draw focus away, I don't like it much. Using digital cameras compound the problem -- even when set on "manual" (which I use exclusively), the camera has to "think" a bit between me pressing the shutter release & the actual exposure, and that little pause can be significant.

But in this case, the benefits (precise positioning to take advantage of the uplight) outweighs the downside (drawing focus away). The vast majority of these pictures don't have this "lost focus" issue.

Kira is still moving. I ask her to shake her head & make her hair fly. She does, and I'm very glad she did. Here's one of my favorites for the sitting and so far, for the year, too.

I think the music was the "Brazilian Samba Orgy" music. Kira has been dancing non-stop, is breathing hard, and having the most fun I've ever seen.

There's a line from the movie "Dead Poet's Society" (paraphrasing) that says that man invented language to woo women. If that's the case, then I think that women invented dance to woo men.

Kira looks great, Kira is moving great, the lighting is great, and the planets aligned to allow us to produce some wonderful images. Neither of us wants to stop. We made lots of images -- hopefully, you'll be able to see more in the Out Takes Gallery.

All good things must come to an end. After a good number of rousing songs, the random play list hits upon the "Lumbering Elephant Caravan" song, which is difficult to dance to. Kira is breathing hard but is as happy as I've ever seen her. I take the opportunity to change the lighting a bit. Typically, if I am changing soft boxes, or adding or subtracting lights, I turn on the overheads & turn off the power to the lights. The mirror is still up, and Kira likes the light from the room spot light that is positioned to wash the wall where she happens to be standing. She asks for some exposures under this light, and I comply. But the light is just not bright enough for good exposures (which is another way of me admitting that I should have raised the ISO setting on the digital camera but didn't think of it at the time). Still, the images are lovely, in no small part to Kira's beauty.

Kira is a rarity -- most models expect simply to take direction, but Kira often comes up with inspiring suggestions. She asks that we create images that will drive her ex-"fling" crazy & make him regret ever treating her wrong. I come up with this "less is more" approach. She looks like a bronze sculpture; her skin is perfect; the naughty bits are covered but her nudity sparks the imagination.

Suffer, fool!

Here's another favorite -- Kira in all her sexy glory.

On comes the "Argentina Wins The World Cup" music, and Kira starts to dance again. She is tireless.

I can't tell you how much fun we were having. Kira got a great workout, and I'm sure we are making some really good images. Kira danced for a long, long time, and by the end, she was breathing hard but was totally engaged. We both got the sense that we were having a very special sitting.

Kira taught me a lot -- during our first sitting, she was not in a good mood, and the pictures suffered for it. That made me think about the responsibility of the photographer to set the mood & control the sitting. We did much better for our second sitting -- that second sitting was typically fun, and the images we produced were much better. This sitting, this third sitting, was one of my best ever -- we had so much fun! The atmosphere was just perfect; the lighting was great; the music was inspiring. Kira arrived feeling really good, especially good about how she looked, and it showed. We'll be hard pressed to top this sitting.

I had wanted to invite Kira into the shower during the second sitting, but she had an appointment immediately after our sitting, and she didn't want to get wet. She promised that during our next sitting, she'd make sure that we spent some time in the shower. That's where we went next.

This sitting concludes with Kira Gets Wet.