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Most of the "studio"
images I make are made in my living room. I push the
couch, coffee table, and bookcases out of the room, set
up my backdrop on the east side of the room, and the camera &
I occupy the central portion of the room. On the west
side of the room are three very large "bay" windows,
and that's where my famous big comfy chair normally sits.
When I switch from one lighting setup to another, I'm messing
around in the east side of the room, and models tend to
hang out in the west side -- the big comfy chair is a model
magnet. |
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Roll your mouse
over the above image. |
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I should mention
that when I am hosting a nude modeling session, I turn the
heat up, literally. Not only are the radiators working
to their limit, there also is a little space heater that's
working hard, too. The model's comfort is important
to me, and although I might wind up sweating, the model
is comfortable lounging around between setups while staying
nude.
I remember
an earlier session with Carlotta -- I could never get the
room warm enough that day, and Carlotta would take her breaks
in the extra-warm bathroom between setups, but by moving
from warm to cool continuously, I think she caught a cold.
In any
case, despite being late winter, the living room was quite
comfortable. I was moving all the lighting equipment
out of the way so that Carlotta & I would work with
the window light, and she just snuggled down in the comfy
chair while I worked. When I turned to tell her I
was ready, I was struck by how nice the light by the chair
was, so we made these exposures before working with my favorite
light.
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See the little
space heater on the lower right? It's keeping everybody
warm, but I'm sure it'll get moved out of the way shortly.
Sunny
winter days are rare, and I knew we were going to take advantage
of that rare window light, and I'm glad we did. I
think we made some of the best images using this wondrous
light.
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A very large
part of the appeal to me about working with this window
is the off-center compositions it inspires.
It's
interesting -- I remember making these images. For
these images, the camera & I are set up quite a further
distance from Carlotta than we used for the previous images.
That distance insulated us from each other, and from that
distance, I remember thinking to myself how magnificent
Carlotta's figure is. When we were closer, I was working
to interact with Carlotta, to engage her brain. But
here, at distance, I could just watch & appreciate how
she moved.
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It's interesting
to me that Carlotta can move so well while occupying such
a small percentage of the entire image. There really
isn't a pose that looks bad on Carlotta. |
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It's also interesting
to me that Carlotta appears so darn sexy to me once there's
a bit of distance between us.
For the
image below: I wonder whether my neighbors can see
through my shade into my house. (Not really -- there
was no one there at the time).
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Working with
this window light is technically challenging -- the sunlight
is strong & harsh, but the light in the shadows is low,
which overall requires a longer exposure. Sometimes
this long exposure makes the image look soft overall, and
that conflicts with the harsh sunlight. Additionally,
the angles makes managing the camera's autofocus challenging. |
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Like I said,
I think that these images of Carlotta are some of the best "favorite
window" pictures I've made to date.
I like
this one a lot -- I like the airiness of this image, and
I love the light on her breasts. I like the balanced
composition. I even like the reflection on the floor.
I like this image a lot.
The light
is constantly changing. Not only is the light slowly
creeping to that back wall, it also varying in brightness &
harshness. Heck, even the way the light bounces up
off the floor is changing.
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As the afternoon
stretches on, the sun creeps towards the west, and the patch
of sunlight starts to crawl up the wall. Look at all
those angles! And yet, all those angles look natural &
make sense. Best of all, these angles inspire some
interesting compositions.
This
is amazing light. Look at it! The light softly
caresses Carlotta's lovely face, but it is harsh across
her breasts. I like how this image works.
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