Overexposed: Curled Nude

This is a bit overexposed for me, but the lighting is great. I was drawn to it because the curled position indicated an 'insular' feeling, you could see the face, & the cam level made good perspective. I find the idea very appealing. I can imagine where you're coming from and what you were trying to achieve. Glad you posted it despite the overexposure.

 

Something that makes me curious about your self-portraits is: do you see yourself as 'yourself' or 'somebody else'? Just wondered because I have taken many self-portraits myself & I try to reflect an aspect of myself, but I am aware it is perhaps easier to act another 'role'. I think it is preferable to be yourself & I suspect this is what you do. Portraits that are not genuine reflecting the self often look too deliberately posed. Yours don't, they appear to reveal a real part of you & I congratutulate you for sharing this. Your technical & artistic skills are definitely to be admired.

Oh my god...I've been chosen for POW? Ok, on one hand, I am very, very pleased - thank you, Photo.net.
Now let me go get my kevlar suit on. Then cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war...

Amy Powers gets a photo of the week. Well done. Always interesting work and interesting critiques. What does that say about the direction of photo.net? Though they picked a more conservative pose... I think the "head back" shot is a stronger image then this from the same series.

Well deserved Amy! The composition, position of the model (your pose) and the lighting all serve to make this shot worthy of the POW. Letting the upper arm highlights blow out accentuates the face and the darker shadows that result in adding to the feeling of the pose.....Well Done!

 

 

A bit of background...this picture was taken with me sitting on the island in the middle of my partner's kitchen. The lighting is a single household tungsten bulb in a recessed overhead fixture - the ceiling is about ten feet, and the island about three and a half feet high. I threw some black satin-y type material over the island.

Of course, my tripod isn't tall enough to get the angle I wanted, so I wound up putting it on a small stepladder and then tying the legs of the tripod to it! Pretty rickety and it definitely made me nervous, but...I could then prefocus, set the timer, and sort of hop from the ladder onto the island, try not to slide off, as the fabric on the marble counter was very slippery, and pose.

Altogether a somewhat Rube Goldberg experience in self-portraits. But I had done some stuff with a very narrow single down spotlight, and I wanted to try a single overhead light that was farther away and broader to see what I got.

I also wanted to try deliberately overexposing, since I usually tend to go with darker, more underexposed images.

If I could change anything, I would use a matte fabric - the shine of the satin is distracting and the wrinkles don't work.

I wonder why did you scored your own picture? - Is it another kind of self-portraiture?

 

Otherwise, I am an admirer of your nudes, but definitely not of this one: it is too concrete. You have some more abstract nudes: in the cage, in the empty room, the ones you called "filtered nudes" - all these are showing an excellent use of light (and shadows), as well as some excellent compositions, and even some interesting messages. But this one shows and says not big things to me: I don't like the overexposure combined with this too classical pose (I would have preferred more grays), and the composition has something wrong (isn't it the head too big?), a message? - (a little bit too theatrical to say something interesting to me).

 

I didn't rate this picture, because I rate only what I like most, or it is far to be the case with this one. But I promise to take a look this week to your other nudes (that I like) and to score them highly.

 

Uh, but I have to see this one for 7 days on my navigator's homepage

In fact I went this evening to your presentations and I scored high: 3 "filtered nudes", the one from "B/W Cage", 2 from "B/W Downlight", 2 from "Nudes in an Empty Room", 1 from "Nude Self Portraits" that doesn't appears in another presentation. That's to prove you that I like lots of your nudes, but not this POW one, definitely not this one!

I think the concept of over exposure in this picture is being mistaken for dramatic lighting. When I develop B&W in the darkroom I look for a pure white and a pure black to find the right exposure. This picture has both and everything in-between. Some parts of the subject may be over exposed while other parts are under exposed but I think that the most important part your face is perfect.

 

More even lighting might have resulted in a more even exposure but you would lose the dramatic effect. I dont know if you achieved what you wanted but it looks pretty darn good to me.

It was high time for Amy to get a POW for her beautiful body of work!

Amy, the portfolio from which this image is taken is one of the most original and interesting I have seen on photo.net. While I don't necessarily like them all, I find most of them, including this one, intriguing and more than either merely figure studies or titillation for male viewers.

 

So much nude work that I see in photo magazines veers toward the 'glamour' or self-conciously 'arty' attempts (which often fail) that this down-to-earth series of experimental shots really strike me as being unusual. I urge you to continue with your work, and explore the many original ideas you have. I also like the PolaPan images, I think it's time I dug out that Polaroid processor I bought years ago.

 

As to this image: the fact that it is titled 'overexposed' suggests that this is intentional, and viewers should realise this is deliberate and not something to be corrected. I like the lighting and the pose. The head is against black, while the rest of the body has a kind of halo around it. I like this effect very much. I also like the facial skin tones. The right foot (I think it is) is bleached out and distracting. OTOH I don't have a problem with the fabric - the ripples give it substance and texture, which is key information about what it is. Plain black would IMHO have robbed it of value.

 

A fascinating and inspiring image.

I disagree that this is not the best of the folder. I think it is. I think the fetal positioning conveys the vulnerablility and openness that your other pictures do in a more graphical manner, but that bright elbow and strong back give a feeling of resistance and add punch.

The only thing compositionally that bugs me is your left foot. The overall tones in the picture are so pleasing and accent the form of your body over texture, but the lines and shades on your foot are inconsistent.

 

Congratulations on a well deserved POW.

 

BTW, while I agree with Kyle's comments on the pure white to pure black range as being a useful tool to identify a quality exposure, and while this picture naturally has that, one has to be careful not to force the issue with increasing the contrast of a thin negative, either chemically or digitally. It is very tempting to do it, but it rarely meets the quality of a well exposed picture from the start. This picture gives a nice range so I would probably not choose to describe the arm as "blown out", and instead describe it as the "pure white" of a well-exposed picture, though "blown out" was my first reaction to the thumbnail.

Terrific!! I like the arm and face pose, typically a "window/table" pose, contrasting with the rest of the body and obviously unusual angle.

 

A small technical note-this picture demonstrates how the very great depth of field of digital cameras can be put to positive use...

Superb - I love this shot in fact i think that all of your shots are classy, artistic and very well done - keep up the great work

Great perspective, nice detail in the hair, and I agree that the overexposure adds to the drama. I also second the notion about the cloth - it's texture and not distracting. Another example of a fresh eye stretching a cliched subject from within the rules. Good Job

I like it but I find the rectangular blanket disturbing the body shape.

First off, congrats on making photo of the week. What can I say, I like almost all of your work, it does not shock me to see one make it.

 

This is a wonderful shot, and although "overexposed" in the technical sense (and I'll ignore the pun of being overexposed due to being nude... :) ), I think it is the correct exposure as far as an artistic statement. What else can I say, other then as with almost all your work I've seen in this forum, it's fantastic.

Well deserved, your self portraits are first rate. I still don't know if you properly remunerate your model however:-) Congratulations.

Stunning. Love the lighting from above and thank you for the complete detail on how you did the shot! The texture, tones and shadowed curves are beautiful. I'd like to have seen pure black beneath... agree the wrinkles and shine distract - but not much. It works and congratulations! Also nice to see this one has not generated any of those usual nasty unhelpful comments sometimes found throughout the POW.

Thats a week without photo.net from work now. This is a great shot, though. I like it even better knowing how it was shot. I wish more photogs would go into this kind of detail.

Amy, I have commented on your work before but I had to drop a quick comment to congratulate you and having one of your many fantastic images chosen as Photograph of the Week. I knew that it was only a matter of time given the quality of your work and the recognition it has been receiving within the Photo.net community. Keep up the great work!

A good photo but I think you have some lighting problems; for me the overexposure doesn't work. I find the lighting on the shoulders, arm and elbow way too hot; it seems to make your shoulders look very flat and squared off. The amount of light falling on the top of the right foot is also very distracting; I find my eye goes from your face to your elbow to your foot. I think less exposure on these areas would have made my eye come to rest on the serenity of your face. Given this was a self portrait, it is amazing that the lighting and pose are so good.

"It was high time for Amy to get a POW for her beautiful body of work!"

 

Exactly put.I can't agree more! I wish I could take this kind of shot, (I think the hairs on my legs would be distracting) I guess I feel inspired now. All this talent, and a knowledge of literature too! (Shakespeare I think?) I really love your work Amy, and, in my opinion, you definately deserve POW - perhaps even folder of the week!

Congratulations on POW Amy. I must agree with Tim though, the head back pose would have been my choice. So many good ones to choose from!

As someone who periodically attempts to make decent self-portraits, I can recognize the amazing difficulty that it takes to come up with something even halfway decent, let alone beautiful, as is the case with this shot. I wish that more photo-netters would describe the details of their work, as you have -- it really helps those of us who are trying to learn. BTW, I think your use of satin worked quite well, contrary to your negative opinion. IMHO, it separates the black background from the black table texturally (I made that word up), keeping the background from blending into one uniform bland mass. Just my $.02, you can see from my work that I'm really just an amateur.

I too have previously commmented on your work Amy... positively I might add. Congrats on this photo, and it's nice to see that Armageddon has so far failed to materialize (although I think it's only a matter of time ;-))

 

Anyways, you may have enlightened photo.netters with respect to some of your other photos, but perhaps the broader exposure of a POW may be a good time to ask again - how on earth do you pose yourself for these self portraits? Do you use an assistant to help? Do you use digital previews? Do you take dozens upon dozens of photos? Or are you simply god-like in your ability to visualize your pose from a completely different perspective? Enquiring minds want to know!