I intended to post after work and the toddler's bedtime last night. Instead I ended up watching horror movies through my eyelids (snoring too) on the couch with the toddler and my husband decided to let me sleep. I suppose I needed it if I was out so much that he couldn't wake me up to drag me to bed when it was his bedtime.
Alright, back to work now. Time to discuss the photos I posted on my pause the other day as well as more thoughts on boudoir and the use of depth in shooting some poses. We will start with one of my favorites, shown here in monochrome though the color is equally impressive. I am going for pose so color would be distracting since the lingerie is a startlingly bright shade of unashamed PINK that we picked first for the distraction and ended up giving us great teaching shots. Thanks so much to the lovely Brooklyn who was my model for this test shoot and did a great job.
This pose is all about eye contact and getting the right light on the hair and face. What you want to think about in this shot style is how to capture the model's pose without distortion from too much fore-shortening. This means showing enough of the whole body to keep everything in proper perspective, making sure it does not seem like they are just a floating head/torso. The second major focus needs to be on getting the right amount of light, which I must say took testing, shooting, moving stands for lights, re-shooting, moving again, re-shooting, and so one... all with a very patient model hold pose through the whole process. The final lighting was finished in post-production and only required some work to fix a smudge on the backdrop and a bit of editing to the skin.
The rest of the session was focused on legs and getting some great "shape" with lights. I worked mostly on shooting "Parts" of the model rather than her whole figure so I could get the best grasp of how to turn or move into the right spot to accentuate a fantastic figure. I expressed before that my love for shoes is a special one, and this let me play on that passion for shoes while shooting.
This shot was inspired with a clearly topless one I saw online and wanted to work from for future boudoir shooting. I was thinking about trying to get the focus on the legs rather than the bust-line, and wanted to bring the focus through the "motion" of the leg lift. I think it worked well over all. The hint of a topless figure from the hanging bra is there to help with the story telling, though the model was actually still wearing the lingerie top.
In this last shot I was going for shadows and a vintage feeling by working on a darker coloration. My goal here was to keep the face in semi-shadow so we could see that contrast. I adore the expression here too... something like a request but not a blatant "follow me to the bed" either. I'm still not completely sold on this shot's success, but I got some solid moments out of it and a chance to work with a lovely up-and-coming model that has a great sense of humor when her photographer is a total klutz.
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