|
|
This is Sagebell,
or Sage for short. I've admired her images on her
modeling profile for a while, but she makes a striking first
impression. Here's how she describes herself:
"I have an Extremely long
torso accompanied by a long neck and regular length legs".
That's correct, but I would add that she is extremely tall
and also has very long arms. I am six feet tall (or
at least, I used to be); my front door is at the top of
some steps & landing, and there is a final step from
the landing to my front door's threshold. Sage was
standing there on the landing, a step below me when I answered
the door, but with her heeled boots, we were looking eye-to-eye
when I opened the door. I figure, barefoot to barefoot,
she still might be slightly taller than I.
Some
women would be able to handle that height, but Sage is very
confident & very experienced (she's been modeling since
her early teens). Her unusual proportions work well
for her, and she moves with wonderful grace.
|
|
|
|
One attribute
of my most preferred models is their ability to make large
gestures. With her long torso & arms, few can
make larger gestures than Sage, and she pulls it off with
great grace. |
|
|
Frequent visitors
to this web site will know that I enjoy the "artistic
effects" available from my photo editing software;
and this "paint brush" effect is my favorite.
I like this for several reasons:
-
I've long
admired impressionistic paintings.
-
My aging
eyesight just isn't as sharp as it used to be.
All the finely focused details are lost on me.
-
For my
whole like, I've always been fascinated by how one can
efficiently reduce detail while still conveying enough
information to produce a recognizable image.
-
Sometimes,
by simply reducing an image to its key elements, once
can transform an image into something better.
This is a good example: the photograph, above,
is "average", but the painting, below, reducing
the image to the gesture and is "above average"
(at least to me).
|
|
|
|
Sage is a dynamic
poser, meaning that she's always moving. Further,
she moves from small gestures to large gestures continuously.
Many photographers, including me, like it when a model moves.
These strobes have a flash duration of 1/3000th of a second,
which is quick enough to freeze any human movement.
To each
his own -- there are photographers who want to fine tune
a model's pose, millimeter by millimeter, and there are
models who prefer that the photographer helps them get the
pose perfect. To my eye, images made this way are
often stiff & uncomfortable looking. Give me a
model who moves, like Sage.
|
|
|
|
This image
on the left is a cropping of the image above. There
are many photographers who compose their images in their
viewfinders and take pride in using the entire original
image surface area. I'm not one of these. I
think of the original as a rough draft that needs polishing.
Sometimes that means cutting out (cropping out) the stuff
that is somehow extraneous. I do this when I write
these commentaries -- my first draft is often too wordy.
When I edit, I cut things down.
But that's
just me.
Yes,
Sage has a wonderful figure -- I'm going to enjoy working
with her.
|
I have a very
strong preference for eye contact with the camera.
I really don't like images like this one, where the model
is staring out into the distance -- I especially don't care
for the images where the model is standing by a window &
staring wistfully out it. I always wonder...
-
What is she looking at?
-
Why is she ignoring the photographer?
-
Are we supposed to by secret & invisible voyeurs?
In addition,
the model's glaze pulls the viewer's eye out of the image
frame. I just don't like it.
But to
be honest, tons of photographers, including some excellent
professional photographers, prefer this, and many experienced
models, like Sage, are trained to show photographers poses
like this.
So, I
remind Sage that I prefer eye contact.
There
is an exception -- I find that I don't mind it as much when
the model is looking at something within the image frame
-- see the next image.
|
|
|
|
I really like this torso picture.
It shows off Sage's long torso & arms (and her perfect
breasts). If pressed, I'd admit that I originally
cropped this image because Sage was staring out into the
distance, but I think I would crop it still, even if she
was smiling at the camera. |
|
