Moving

I will be closing this Blog in the next few weeks. But you can following me on my new blog at http://figuremodels.org/insomniacure/.

A couple of farewell images from the past weekend.

Going Green

Going Green

After hearing so much over the past few years about “Going Green” I decide to give it a try earlier this week You know what I really like it :) For color work it gives a wonderful glow to the images while for black & white it allows for the use of wide range of pleasing tones in post process. So remember the the next time you're about order that roll of white or black seamless paper, go green or pink or purple,,,

Still here!

Yes despite not posting anything for over a month I'm still around, you didn't really think that you'd get rid of me that easily “Evil Laugh” . If anyone is wondering or cares; come on now there's over six billion people in the world so at least one or two of them must care, maybe just a little. No I haven't been spending the last five week in a cave, though that could make for an interesting project “Nudes in the Cavern” I have in fact been working on putting together some fresh material for possible use in a national publication this fall. Of course since I only do a very limited amount of shooting I'm pretty much keeping the new material under wraps until I find out what if any of it will get published.
So no new work to share this time around just some old stuff I've dusted off.

A Beautiful Time

Every day I realize just how important photography is to me not only an art but as a way of communicating. Through photography I'm able to capture and share something as beautiful and special as the pregnancy of a very close friend.
To Christina, I can only hope that these photographs capture in some small way how beautiful you are at this very special time in your life.

The Window Part III

The Window cont

On one hand I wish I'd removed the screen from the window prior to taking these, on the other hand I kind of like the look/feel that it adds to the shots.

New Feature Weekly Series “The Window”

Today's post features the first image from this month's shoot with Sarah Ellis, additional images will be post through the following week. This series will then be followed but other weekly series over the next few months. Each series will be based on a common shoot, model or theme. Not completely sure on this format will work but what the hell lets give it a try.
Mike

On Strike !

I regret to inform everyone that due to a break down at the negotiating table, the left side of my brain decided to go on strike a few days ago. This sadly means this week's post won't include the usual incoherent ramblings that I'm sure you've all come to expect from this blog.

O700 Sunday Morning

Setting here with my second cup of coffee of the morning as I browse Google looking for call for submissions for artistic and art nude photography. I wonder what the person who came up with the term “A needle in a haystack” would think of internet search engines. Come on someone please tell me what search phrase you use so that at least ten percent of the results actually have something to do with what your searching for.
Well I have a shoot in DC scheduled this afternoon which means I need to take the dogs out for their daily walk this morning, that is if I want to get out the house this afternoon in one piece.

From my shoot my recent shoot with Angelique



Setting here with my second cup of coffee of the morning as I browse Google looking for call for submissions for artistic and art nude photography. I wonder what the person who came up with the term “A needle in a haystack” would think of internet search engines. Come on someone please tell me what search phrase you use so that at least ten percent of the results actually have something to do with what your searching for.
Well I have a shoot in DC scheduled this afternoon which means I need to take the dogs out for their daily walk this morning, that is if I want to get out the house this afternoon in one piece LOL

From my shoot my recent shoot with Angelique

Working on weak areas

The original plan for this past Friday's shoot with Angelique was to work outside but after a 10 minute walk to the shooting area then another 10 minutes of trying to find a spot with good lighting, in spite of the clear sky and noon day sun. Where are the freaking clouds when you need them LOL I decided the lighting and conditions just didn't warrant have her freeze in the windy 40 degree weather. So I decided to go with Plan B That would of course be to work on one of my major weak areas, traditional studio artistic nudes, where I need lots of improvement. So we headed back to the cars and drove over to the back up “in door location”. Once there we spent the next approximately two hours shooting very basic artistic nudes. All in all I feel the shoot produced some quality images but more importantly it allowed or rather forced me to work on an area that I really need work on if I ever want to improve my work to the level of photographers whose work I admire greatly

A Walk in the Park Part II

Additional images from last week shoot with Amber.

March 2009 Erotic show MOCA Gallery

Just finished putting together the mats for the photos that I'm planning on showing at next month's annual Erotic show at the MOCA Gallery in Georgetown http://www.mocadc.org/. For people who don't know about it MOCA is a small user supported gallery near Washington DC that gives new and upcoming artists a place to display and sell their work. Which is something that is greatly needed as very few galleries in the Washington DC area show erotic or in that fact any kind of nude work.
If you're in the area please stop by on March 6th between 6 and 10 pm for the opening of the show and an exhibition photo shoot of Playboy model Angelina Leigh by Jerry Harke.
If you're also in the show I look forward to meeting you and seeing you're work.
Please also stop by the other galleries in the area which will also be holding openings and other first Friday events on March 6th
Mike

A Walk in the Park

For the longest time I've felt a bit of jealousy when ever I saw a nude shot in a beautiful location. I now realize how foolish this was as there are beautiful locations all around, some of which just require seeing beyond one's preconceived notions of what makes a good location and instead seeing each location for its own unique beauty. I'm not sure what is was that made me decide to open my eyes and start looking around instead of wasting time being jealous, but that's what I did and you know what I found a beautiful location less then two miles from my house. Which I was able to take advantage of for the first time this past Tuesday afternoon, and was it ever a perfect day for shooting.
The sky was filled with those thin soft clouds that act like giant soft boxes, providing beautiful lighting from almost every angle. Now when I go there each day for my afternoon walk it with eyes open instead of closed.

A quite moment

Note to self, always keep an eye on the weather!

Beautiful day in the low 60s today but of course I didn't bother to check the weather forecast yesterday or Friday so I wasn't able to take advantage of it, physiologically kicking myself in the backside as I write this. That being said the day wasn't a complete loss as I was able to check out what looks to be a very promising location for future shoots. Plus the dogs and I got to enjoyed a nice long walk in the woods which believe me, we all needed.

Beauty and Ice

Late last year I decided to spend as much of 2009 outside with that in mind I started exploring the local area for sites that might make for interesting locations for shoots once the temperatures start getting warmer. So last week I load my two dogs in the car and drove over to check out another possible location, Now mind you I had no intention of shooting at this location anytime in the immediate future but when I saw how this pier looked with the icicles hang off it all I could think of was where can I find a model who'd be up for this. Now mind you when I emailed Amber I wasn't really expecting her to say yes, but knowing how cool Amber is I should have known she'd be up for it :)

Girl Talk

Melissa and Christina from this past Sunday's shoot.

Melissa on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta

I have a shoot scheduled with Melissa for this coming Sunday so I thought what would be a better way to try out my first order of Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper then printing a few of my favorite images of Melissa. As I've said in previous post I'm definitely what you'd call a beginner as far printing goes so when I give an opinion about how I like or what I think about a paper its from that point of view.
So what do I think about Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta? I think it delivers incredible beautiful prints that feature excellent detail in all areas of an image from highlights to shadows as well as a beautifully range of tones.
As part of a comment he made to last week's post Vernon Trent was kind enough to recommend that I give a program called Quad Tone Rip and try, So I went ahead and downloaded the program and installed it as a printer driver in Lightroom 2.0. I've only been using the program for a few days so it will be a while until I can give even a beginner's level opinion of the software.
Mike

The Big Brown Truck :)

Thursday morning the nice person from UPS showed up with my package from Adorama, which included a box of ProJet Elite Watercolor Linen Texture 11x14 printer paper, along with a number of ink cartridges for my R1900 printer. Now I've only been doing my own printing for about year due the fact that everything I've read about printing made it sound pretty dam hard, but I finally decided to bite the bullet give it a try. Luckily for me the first paper I tried was Iford Gold Fibre Silk (FGS)which came with instructions that allow even someone as slow as myself to get high quality prints.
One the other hand the instructions for Projet Elite pretty much suck if you're using a MAC rather then a PC. In fact I'd probably still be trying to figure out how to load/use the profiles that I'd download from Adorama if I hadn't just said screw it and went ahead and used Ilford's instructions.
So far I've done seven prints with using the new paper, including the first two that came out too dark, due the fact that there's not a specific profile for the Watercolor Linen Texture oh and the profiles are actually for the older R1800 rather then the R1900. Once I figured/guessed which profile to use the resulting prints came out quit nicely. In fact just a few minutes ago I printed out the second image ,which was shot at ISO 3200, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the print. I'm still trying to decide it I like texture of the paper and may try some more standard papers from Projet, namely Picture Rag to see what I like best.
So I'll give the paper a B+, but the person(s) who wrote the instructions gets an F-.
Next papers on my list to try are Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta 325 and Bamboo.
Mike

Timing!

For some reason I keep coming back to this image from last Saturday's shoot with Christina. On one hand I feel that I missed the shot, most likely I pressed the shutter a second too late, which I have a habit of doing because of my dependancy on the camera's auto focus system. Yup even with a full frame body like the 5D and fast lens manual focus is pragmatic at best for me, so I a rule pretty much don't press the shutter unless the selected focus point is on the model's eye or other key feature. This of course results in a number of near misses here and there. On the other hand there something about this image that's communicates a feeling of sensuality with a just a hint of vulnerability.

A Little Color

A little bit of color to start out the new week.