Body in the dunes....

After a nice evening watching the setting sun at the beach, you walk through the dunes in the fading light and find this.....
Dead? Alive? What happened?

P.T.

Pants!

So this was a real messing about photo to go with the last post. I realised Jo was snapping away as i walked very carefully on the sharp stones, so when i got to my clothes i decided to do a silly pose....

P.T.

Just hangin out on the old railway....

So this is me doing a lighthearted shoot on a railway line with the help of my good mate Jo whilst i was visiting her recently. I pretty much set it up, and she worked the camera.

These were a bonus as we were actually out to view a different location.

Having done these i can now try and think of something a bit more arty and control the lighting better. Perhaps even go there at night next time i'm visiting the area.

P.T.

At Rest....

It was a cold and damp November morning when i had a day out with a friend, Pixi, a few years ago with the intention of making art nude photos in the woods. We had ideas to try out, which gave us some good images, but we also tried out various things on the day and ended up with these photographs which i feel have a very nice and peaceful look to them.

Although not a photographer, Pixi has an artistic flare. I chose poses and offered advice, but she also had good input and chose compositions.

Despite it being cold and damp, i think i look very calm and relaxed. I think this had a lot to do with the way myself and Pixi felt very at ease and trusting around each other. This of course is important between any photographer and model, especially when doing nude work.



I'm posting both colour and black and white for the first photograph as i really like both. Which one i prefer seems to depend very much on my mood at the time.
The second photograph was always going to be black and white. I love the composition with the figure to one side.

Pinhole Camera and the Figure

A few years ago before i went digital i drilled a hole in the body cap of an old film camera that had a few minor faults. As it had a slightly sticky shutter the plan was to use it as a pinhole camera. For various reasons i never got round to it. I dug it out recently and realised that with a bit of Blue Tac i could stick it on the front of my DSLR.
The results have been a bit mixed, especially outdoors in the sun as i think i'm getting too much light leaking in, but i tried some nudes indoors using just window light. The results lacked contrast but are quite nice in a very subtle way. I've processed some and kept that lightness and lack of contrast. I made a couple of versions, one toned and one black and white. Then i tried boosting the contrast in some, which i think works quite well.

Here's a selection showing the light subtle versions that i toned.....

Here's a few of the black and white, and higher contrast versions...and one toned but with a little vignetting.

Not Quite Glamour!

I decided that i'd do my own version of a fairly standard glamour photo we see all the time. Normally of course it would be a woman, almost always young and wearing either very little, or nothing. Now i'm not young, not a woman, don't have the breasts, and don't have the "sexy" underwear. For those reasons my version is perhaps not quite as glamorous. I also chose slightly different crops around the face with the view of playing on the not so glamorous look. I also used a high ISO setting to use the digital noise like grain in film. Personally i quite like the effect when used in monochrome photographs.

Overall i liked the results, but i'll show a few so viewers you can decide if any work better than the others. There are also different versions of some to show how they can look different depending on the editing.
The photos are better viewed large, which can be done by clicking on them.

I'll start with my personal favourite:

I liked this one with the shallow depth of field, and also just the one eye showing.

Here's a toned version for comparison.

I like the tilted head angle on this one.

I wanted one with both eyes in the frame, and also wanted something with greater depth of field, though it does make it a bit more "graphic".

Again there's a tonal version for comparison.

I tried this one with only the mouth in the frame as i was looking for greater anonymity.

Finally i'm back to my favourite. This time it was edited in camera using one of the art functions. It adds grain, and has three different contrast settings. I also tweaked it in Adobe Lightroom to get the highlights completely blown out. The idea was to draw attention  more towards the eye and face. It also leaves a subtle line of the body to the genitalia which is nicely out of focus.