Victoria, Semi-Horizontal

Okay, we enter the home stretch of the sitting. I've got to admit that Victoria is still jumping around with all sorts of energy, and I'm starting to flag. For the past few sittings, I've made a point of getting my models to pose horizontally, but Victoria hasn't done that for me yet. So, we set up some horizontal images.

I'll return to a concept if I feel I can improve it, but otherwise, I dislike repeating concepts. When I asked Brooke to pose horizontally, I loved the arch in her back, but there wasn't a lot of tonal separation between her back in shadow & the dark backdrop. When I asked Jennifer to pose horizontally, we tried a few things to address this issue:

We lit the backdrop from above (changing the position a couple of times before we got it right),
We backlit Jennifer's figure, and
We used a black backdrop.

But I like this solution better than the previous attempts. Here we have a backdrop lit from a light source on the floor, behind the model's posing table. The darker areas to the left & right sides of the image make the whole image feel more cozy.

I also like the casual positioning of Victoria's arm & leg.

A slight variation from the preceding image. I don't know why but I like seeing model's ribs -- sometimes the architecture of the human body is enough to interest me. Other points of interest:

I like that there is nothing but soft surfaces in the image.
There is some nice hair highlights, something missing from previous horizontal setups.
Victoria has nice legs, doesn't she?

However, there is room for improvement, for me (not for Victoria -- she is perfect).

Again, the technical aspects are below my standards -- poor exposure & processing.
The lighting could be improved -- in many of these images, the light on Victoria's face is too shadowy.
In the picture above, the wrinkles on the blanket are distracting.
And overall, the camera positioning is not interesting.

Worse, the digital images were horribly exposed. There's something to be said for the darker, higher contrast treatment, but that wasn't intentional. In fact, I am surprised that the actual image was so poor, especially since the preview image on the LCD screen looked fine. I am committed in sharing my mistakes on this web site, because failures are often more instructive than successes, but I won't be sharing too many of the digital images from this setup. Too bad -- Victoria looks wonderful. But that being said -- here's a couple:

Victoria poses a bit in a more upright position.

Close, but no cigar. Victoria looks lovely -- honest eye contact, a secret smile on her face, and her amazing figure is well displayed. I do like the light on the back of her shoulder.

However, the background light is a bit too bright, the exposure is off, and we could have stood a hair light on the back of her hair.

She is nude, but somehow it is a quiet kind of nude. This pose is less "in your face" than your typical pose, and that makes this picture interesting to me.

Victoria has wonderful posture. In fact, to me the best thing about photographing dancers is that they have wonderful posture. But for just one exposure, I ask Victoria to slouch & slump, and this is what we got. Perhaps it is nasty of me, but I like this picture, mostly because Victoria has great eye contact and is totally relaxed. (Perhaps I should crop it above her waist -- what do you think?)

Two last digital images, above.

Here is the final image from this sitting. It is a good idea but one that begs for improvement.

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to work with Victoria A. -- she is a very special model. She travels around quite a bit & is approachable, and she gets my highest recommendation.

Things that went well:

Getting her moving not only produced some interesting images, it set the tone for the entire sitting. This was one of the highest energy sittings I've had.
We tried new (for me) things. I really like the low level perspective, the movement pictures, and the improved horizontal lighting.

Things that could be improved:

Exposure -- I did a poor job during this sitting. In particular, I can't trust the LCD preview screen on my digital camera.
While the horizontal pictures shown here are an improvement, there is still room for more improvement.
I definitely want to try the low perspective stuff some more, perhaps with some high perspective stuff, too.