More Melted World

I admit it. I am a cerebral & analytical person. When faced with a complex or big decision, I like to create spreadsheets. I am visually orientated, so I like creating bar charts & pie charts & graphs. I take pleasure in organizing a complex system into easy to understand pictures. Know those UPS commercials with the guy drawing on a whiteboard? I used to do that for a living, and I was one of the best around.

Photography is my main artistic release. As long as I am making progress, I'm happy. But admittedly, my approach is cerebral & analytical. I know tons of other photographers, and many of them (most of them?) enjoy being instinctual -- they schedule a model, put her in a setting, and just react to what they see. There's nothing wrong with that kind of approach, but it's not for me. What I observe is that these other photographers tend to stagnate -- the images they make this year look remarkably like the images they made last year, 5 years ago, 10 years ago. That would drive me crazy.

I want to see progress. If I recognize images as similar to stuff I've done before, I am disappointed. But if I make even a hairbreadth's worth of progress, I am satisfied. To ensure progress, I look at my images, and I do more than just schedule a model, a time, and a place. I plan some concepts -- new ideas to try. I should mention that I'm happy if I try something & it fails -- if you never try, you'll never know.

Such is the case of the previous page -- The World Melts Away. That page represents a combination of three separate thoughts.

The first of the three inspiring ideas actually was inspired by my favorite model, Jessica. Sadly, she has moved away, seeking her fame & fortune in New York City. Although she is now far away, we often talk. But when we talk, she is always multi-tasking. She is hustling to the subway, juggling her phone with her coffee, and reacting to what she sees on the street. Between you & me, she's not that great of a multi-tasker -- she is easily distracted, she reacts quickly, and she just can't focus on the conversation. These are not bad things, but these are signs of modern times, I think. Heck, I do it, too -- as I write this, I have five windows open on my PC, there's a TV playing next to my monitor to keep me company, and I just got a business e-mail that I really should get to right away. I seem to remember that, in my youth, life just didn't feel all that complicated, but nowadays, it takes a lot of effort to focus on a single task to the total exclusion of all others. So, modern life is complicated. Hence, look at Carlotta there -- she's on the phone, enjoying her tea, looking a pictures while talking on the phone, etc. That's the modern world.

I blame cell phones. Cell phones are terrible ideas.

(The book Carlotta is reading is Ruth Bernhard's first book).

I thought of including some of the color images on the previous page, at least to start, but that would have meant that I would have to make the transition to B&W images somewhere along the way. I wouldn't have liked doing that all at once, and I'm too lazy to figure out how to desatuate the images gradually. So, I just used B&W exclusively on the previous page; I'll include some color images on this page.

The second of the three inspiring ideas has to do with Carlotta herself. Look at her! That face! That figure! Those magnificent, world-class breasts! In addition, Carlotta is prolific & hard working -- she travels often for weeks at a time; she works with all levels of photographers, from leading international magazines to inexperienced fine art photographers. Pictures of her are all over, in magazines & on the Internet. She is the Goddess of Sex. Half the world lusts after her, and the other half envies her.

Again, there's nothing wrong with that. But I wondered: Could a picture of Carlotta be made that doesn't make the viewer think of sex?

The third of the three inspiring ideas has to do with my favorite thing to do with models at the beginning of our sessions together: I like doing the "Getting Started" setup, where the model starts clothed, and I create an extended sequence of the model removing her clothing, which transforms her from a person you might see on the street to a beautiful, timeless fine art model. Given the first two ideas (the complexity of modern life and the challenge of creating non-sexual images of the beautifully sexy Carlotta), I thought why not start with a busy ("clothed") set, and have the items that complicated the set disappear as the model's clothing is removed? It's an idea that has some promise, so I decided to try this with Carlotta. Who better?

It should be obvious: I much prefer B&W images. Requests for more color is the most popular feedback from visitors, but sorry, I prefer the B&W. In fact, sometimes I want to say, "If you want to see more color, why don't you pick up your own darned camera & create the images you want to see?" Ha! (I'll discuss more on the final page from this sitting, the Carlotta On Canvas).

I wonder whether some of the transitions are too subtle? Like these images with the table sliding across the image frame to exit, image left? I don't know. I guess it's a pixilation idea that was left over from my stop action motion picture photography days.

I thought about including "transition" images like this one in the original sequence. I kinda felt that I shouldn't, but in the end, there were some on the previous page. In retrospect, I should have been a little more decisive when making the pictures, so that I had plenty of images to choose from for the sequence.

These images remind me of some puzzles I saw as a child, where you were presented with two similar images, and you were challenged to spot the 23 things that were different between the two images.

It takes me a long time to edit the photographs & pull together these web site pages, but after working with a model, I put up a private page of some of the best images right away -- I share these privately with the model (and with the "patrons" who have made a donation towards the upkeep of this site). I really liked this image, so it made the short list. Carlotta identified this image as her favorite from the sitting, saying "There is something about the head being cropped out that I really like-the movement is good too". She put this image on one of her online portfolios, and it garnered a wonderful comment: "Anticipation, takes me back to my first love and the first time she took her clothes off. All I can remember thinking is "OH MY GOD" and the feeling that "life is good". Thanks".

Here's a different cropping of an image that appears on the original sequence. The duration of the strobes last just 1/3000th of a second, which is fast enough to freeze most actions. We just had Carlotta toss her jeans, and I pressed the shutter release as it moves through the image frame. It's hit or miss, but fortunately, with editing & reviewing the image on the camera's LCD screen, you don't have to see the misses.

Because of my anal-retentive, control-freak nature, I had to set up the camera & the lens so that each image was from the same perspective. We were careful to keep the big comfy chair in the same place for each exposure. I thought about putting this sequence together into an animated GIF, but the resulting image file would have been huge. I figure that an animated GIF would make it easy to see the differences between two adjacent images, but that would be cheating. I might do that at a later date, but not now.

Another recropping of a strobe frozen image. I think the timing is off slightly on this one.

One additional advantage to this kind of image: it gives the model something to do with her hands.

I really like this image, but it just didn't fit in with the original sequence: it has a different cropping, and it is a "transition" image.

Still, you'll find some variations of this image and others from this sitting on the last page, Carlotta On Canvas.

Here's one of my favorites: I like the movement in the pose & the animated expression on Carlotta's face. Normally, I hate seeing images of models staring out of the image frame, but that's usually because there typically is an empty expression on their faces, and I wind up wondering exactly what they are staring at. In this picture, the lack of eye contact doesn't bother me quite so much, because there is a real expression on Carlotta's face.

... and in a way, it's kinda spooky that you can only see the whites of her eyes.

Somehow, after we swapped the ottoman for the big comfy chair, one of Carlotta's socks snuck into the image (there on the floor to camera left). Because I am so anal retentive about such things, this bugs me a lot, but I'm too lazy to try to photo-edit the sock out (which shouldn't have been too difficult). Again, I might go back & do that, but for now, I'll show everyone my shame at not catching this problem quicker.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I'm really satisfied with the deep rich tones in these images. For once, I got the exposure pretty close to perfect. That's gratifying.

I should also mention that Carlotta was looking especially yummy this day. She had recently curled her hair, and I like the effect, and of course, she was looking particularly curvy & shapely this day.

I like that one shoulder is higher than the other and that there is a little jog in her spine -- I also like that she has great posture.

I also like the lighting setup, with my biggest soft box off camera left and a strobe head with a grid behind the model throwing the hot spot on the wall; there also is a fill light high off frame, camera right. It's about a simple as it gets, but it works well.

Of course the anal retentive in me is bugged by the wire on the floor, leading to the light behind Carlotta. I should have hidden that wire under the puddled backdrop.

I couldn't think of a better way to end the sequence.

I admire any photographer who can string photographs into a meaningful sequence. Duane Michaels was a master at this. I've often tried to give myself an assignment, attempting to tell a story in three (and only three) images. I have yet to do a good job at that. But this extended sequence is pretty satisfying. I think I can do better, but for a first attempt, I think I did pretty good.

Carlotta & I move on, making some more traditional images.

This sitting continues with Shadow & Figure.