Olya, Budding supermodel

Olya, budding supermodel. Ratings and critiques most welcome. (If

you rate harshly or negatively, please submit a helpful and

construcive comment/Please share your superior photographic

knowledge to help advance my skills). Thanks and Enjoy. John

Well, the use of on camera flash is unflattering(see the highlight on her forehead and the general flat light on her body). Composition-wise, it's very poor. A topless girl with a necklace, nothing more. What is aesthetic or original about it?

Tim B. I note and can cure the issue about the reflection of flash on the forehead. The 'shoot' was scheduled at 4:00 p.m. but because of uncontrollable circumstances couldn't take place until sundown and past, and good opportunities were lost. But the negative tone of your critique bothers me; rather than focusing on how to improve you just criticize -- where's the helpfulness of that and what's the purpose? This site, to my mind, is about community, and I have been taught many lessons about helpfulness by many, many able members with generous hearts aiding my images and many thanks to them. John

John, checked this one out this morning at home - then waited to view it again on my work monitor, which is so dark (and of course they refuse to fix it) that most photos are unviewable for all practicable purposes. In this case, the model's flesh tones are much more normal-looking -almost luminous - but of course the background detail is totally lost. I should think it WAS difficult to rescue the shoot once you had lost the light. As I indicated before, I'm practically flash-phobic myself so I can't give many practical suggestions. Maybe even less fill, turn her so you get whatever of the setting sun is left (but that would give a totally dark background, I suppose) - perhaps looking torward the sunset with the fill off-camera and imitating the settings sun's rays? Personally I like the diagonal composition of her arms, lifting up the chest cage - I think that is very nice. The hair play is interesting, the eye contact - hmm, I don't shoot nudes (for lack of $ to pay models, not out of prudish squeamishness) - but eye contact has significant meaning, doesn't it?

I think she is very beautiful and I hope you get many more opportunities to work with her, John!

I am not sure what practical advice you are looking for - don't take photos of nudes with flash at dusk. For the most part they turn out looking like guys playing with their girlfriends and a cheap digicam. Snapshots, no more. This photo has nothing going for it. She maybe beautiful but the image is crap.

Thank you for your "constructive" contribution with a well-chosen word of photographic "art". I have put together my color portfolio almost entirely since Feb. 6 this year and look to courteous members for constructive advice for this, my fledgling effort in this realm and thank you for your "courtesy". Notice, in my request for critique, I asked for you to please share your "superior knowledge". I have looked at your portfolio for your crowning achievements since you joined in 2001 and have considered the source of your "erudition". Those with constructive criticism, please feel free to critique this new area for me, especially considering the difficult circumstances of the shoot. I'm not afraid of low ratings -- and find curious that I can post what I consider wonderful images, very original, without nudity and they may go unrated for the most part unless supersaturated or Photoshopped to death, but a topless woman of some beauty just cannot be ignored. Peri's law?

I will state at the outset, I have no experience of photographing nudes (lack of money here too)

 

I like the way her arms are posed. I agree that the flash has done no favours to this shot.

 

Looking at it, I get more of a feeling of it being - as the bloke above said - being a shot of the girlfriend. Even vaguely like pornography. I say that because she is maintaining eye contact with the viewer. Try turning her head to an angle, and have her looking away from the camera.

 

Also, another moral is if you run out of light, either pack up and don't bother or just use it to try out ideas.

This was the second shoot of the day, the first with Yevgenia, pictured elsewhere.

The price of models there, beautiful as this, was astonishingly minimal, even embarrassingly so, and I was able to schedule two shoots within one afternoon within an otherwise busy schedule on an absolute shoestring and be thanked profusely.

I shot film and digital and am presently traveling so the prints are unavailable for posting -- the film turned out much nicer as it was shot in diminishing daylight and the skin tones are much nicer and fuller -- they wouldn't be subject to the same, after sundown, full flash criticism.

This is the best of the worst bunch of digital images, but for me this is a learning experience, not a showcasing experience for my best of the best, or I would have waited and scanned and uploaded the film prints.

I find it interesting that even such an image as this seems to attract ratings like flies to Labor Day barbecue. Peri's Law II? Incidentally, she is clothed, with a skirt, in the original image, cropped out because of formerly unseen detritus in the background.

The maxim is "you have to start somewhere" and this was my very first attempt -- except at noon that day -- (1) at female unclothed photography and (2) at the use of flash -- fill or not, except for (a) a train wreck in the Nevada Desert (See my Black and White I portfolio) and (b) unposted images of a murderer being escorted into the Nevada State Penitentiary after dark after 47 years of freedom after recapture.

So, I'm a little unfamiliar with this genre, and haven't spent a lot of time, as so many of my raters appear to have, perusing the many nude portfolios and folders to be found on Photo.Net.

Anthony, thank you for your courtesy, as it stands out, and criticism, in a gentlemanly fashion is taken very well here.

BTW, the straight on view was meant to catch the reflection of the flash in the eyes, to add "sparkle" which wouldn't have occurred if she had been looking sideways as you suggested.

And as to the issue of pornography, I'm afraid Potter Stewart, the late Supreme Court Justice, who said "I know it when I see it" could not have said it of this image, as there is little "sexual" about it. My last wife, cancer stricken and not much older when we met, pictured elsewhere in my portfolio, was equally beautiful. Models don't have to be either high-key or in deep moody semi-darkness with heavy shadows to be "art" no matter how inartfully you might think I have portrayed this particular beauty. John

- only, John. That is to say, my one experience with putting anything in the "Nude" category - was that it got more rates than almost anything else I had done, regardless of merit. I suppose we could come up with all sorts of explanations for that phenomenon, and all reasonably valid...

I did also shoot one nude in a studio, in Wetzlar, Germany, (home of Leica) where I was "guest artist". A German woman fine arts photographer friend was teaching students how to do nude photography and I was "guest artist" but not "nude photography artist" and it was a somewhat contrived way to get me into the closed classroom. My contribution can be viewed in one of my black and white portfolios - literally my taking photos of the others taking photos of a nude model. Does that count? But I do have a load of studio lights, soft boxes, barn doors, etc., and intend to get serious about all this in due time. "Ya gotta start somewhere", but you'd think with the expressed hostility of one contributor that somehow I'd seriously offended, instead of participated in a learning experience -- perhaps that contributor should go to charm school, or has unresolved and unspoken "issues", hunh, Lee Park?

some are just more blatant than others, huh, John Crosley? Some of us take ourselves too seriously, perhaps...I'll give you one of my favorite quotes, from Anne Lamott - told to her by a friend who was dying of cancer- "I don't think you have time to waste not writing {insert "photographing"} because you are afraid you won't be good enough at it, and I don't think you have time to waste on someone who does not respond to you with kindness and respect." We're here to learn, I hope - at least you and I are - so we take chances and some people help, some don't and some are just jerks. C'est la vie...

 

 

Okay, so the title was just to lighten things up.

Seriously John, this is a very good early effort. I like the postitioning of the arms and the way the elbows are both included within the frame adding a strong diagonal line. Fill flash is always a bear to use yet alone master. Keep at it.

Best regards, Brent

How did I get them? you ask, like I always do, and like any good photographer should, I went out and shot amazing image after amazing street image that even the "victims" of my photography urged me to publish when they saw how they looked (I showed them on my digital back as I frequently do, because people like to cooperate when they see they're being taken seriously, in an artistic manner). Although somewhat mobility impaired, I was able to take a gigabyte's worth of images with absolutely wonderful murals in the background, and other wonderful images.

 

I'm a wordsmith - used words as weapons for much of my adult life, and few dared tangle with me.

 

I enjoy taking photographs because there's little way that you can "distort" the goodness or badness of a photograph (other than maybe oversaturating it to death or some such) -- it's ultimately an honest hobby or profession as I practice it and it's pure as I do.

 

So, thank you for your good humor and your nice, encouraging words -- nothing would have kept me from continuing my endeavours in this regard anyway, and I appreciate your expressed sentiments about purported "merits" of this particular image. But it truly was put up for critique, and critique is expected and encouraged -- just honest, constructive critique, and hopefully within a collegial environment and within the bounds of decency. Thanks for your kind thoughts. I always welcome comments from the photographer who doesn't have a bad or even mediocre image in his portfolio. (envy,envy,envy) John

I used to be a "paid for hire" fighter and wordsmith, and ultimately know when to disentangle, and while you probably were thinking I was sulking, I was out having the time of my life with street people, making friends and ultimately shaking hands (and getting my hand shaken and back patted) for taking imaginative and sympathetic images that people were looking at with their eyes but didn't "see". See. I think you do. In fact, I know you do, for little escapes your seasoned and trained eye (and I don't just mean your photographer's "eye".) Kind regards. John.

hopefully you are still in the Ukraine and we'll be seeing more of Olya and Yevgenia (I don't even know whether to say "literally" or "figuratively") and the other charmingly furtive lurkers! I envy you the time to shoot, and thank you for sharing your ever-interesting images so I can vicariously enjoy Europe whilst spending my days with the demented and insane...Kindest regards back atcha! lee

John, there are some people on this site, thankfully relatively few, who make an art out of being malicious and mean, while offering nothing which can be interpreted in any way as constructive criticsm in return. The best thing to do is to ignore them. What they are really searching for very often is to draw attention to themselves, which they have not managed to do unfortunately through their own work. The use of flash here is quite understandable if not vital, otherwise how could you take the shot! Of course there are technical faults, but the model is absolutely charming, the expression most compelling and the background brings a warm romantic mood to the scene. To say that the picture above resembles pornography is like saying that barbecue sauce looks like blood and should not be put therefore on decent food.

I stand by what I wrote above. That is the feeling I get from it. I find something slightly unsettling about a nude playing with her hair and looking straight at camera. Would the sparkle in her eyes be necessary to the shot. Personally, I don't think so. Does her face need to be pointing at the camera, again I would say no.

 

Appreciation of the photographs here is personal to the viewer. Opinions were asked for, and offered. Sometimes people cannot understand why their photo has been rated the way it has. It is all down to people's opinions of what makes a good photo. You have yours, I have mine. Also, it doesn't really matter what you think are the merits of the model, it is how the photographer has 'used' the model that is important.

Sure Anthony and I appreciate your analysis above. But beyond the technical considerations are also what the photographer has captured of a human subject, and what I like here is the feeling of presence of the model and her vulnerability.

I have several times perused your numerous photos, only to have my browser balk at downloading your photos because of large file size, and I am dutifully impressed by your considerable work, but more to the point I have followed various threads of the problems you have encountered with "critics" of your art.

 

And it is "art" and has no relation to pornography. I appreciate your kind words, and -- this being the best of the bunch of not-so-good quality digital work and exceeded by the film work taken previously in sunlight -- expect more to be uploaded in due time.

 

I am not easily put off by much, let alone criticism, or even low ratings when I am engaged in a learning experience. And you correctly did pick up on the model's vulnerability, -- she is extraordinarily beautiful -- I was blessed, I think, to capture that. I hope my future postings will show those qualities better technically. Thanks again, John (Crosley)

You mention the vulnerability of the subject, what is about her that suggests vulnerability?

 

To me, looking directly at the camera, she is suggesting confidence, maintaining eye contact with the viewer.

You see in the image what you see, and I (and John Peri) see what we see. That's the magic of photography. Go in good health. John

When the human subject of a piece of art (photography, oil painting, sculpture, whatever) looks directly at the viewer, they are connecting with that viewer. Not with the camera, not with the photographer. With the viewer. The camera, and by necessity, the photographer, are merely tools ? the means to an end, the end being emotions expressed through the photograph. It's what makes so many of John Peri's photos so great ? beautiful women who aren't afraid of their beauty.

 

Personally, when I see a photo of a woman looking directly at the camera, that comes across to me as her looking at ME. When I see a photo of a woman who is looking away, that comes across as her **avoiding** looking at me. And a woman who purposely avoids looking at me is telling me she's not interested, and what a blow that is to my fragile ego. It's much more fun to have a woman, especially a beautiful one, tell me with her eyes that she thinks I'm interesting. And for a woman to bare herself, and look me in the eye is something truly special.

 

As for the fill flash ? I'm with Jon Peri: better fill flash than no photo.

Whether complimentary or not, (and yours was complimentary), well thought out critiques are most welcome in my comments section. You will find that I have a very large number of very erudite commentators and sometimes very lively and sometimes very intellectual discussions on these pages. Welcome and Thanks for your input.

 

John

Wow, but you do get the comments!

 

I haven't read all of them - too many - but a few here and there stood out. In particular someone mentioned that this was bordering on pornography. I read his comment and, oddly enough, I don't think he was using the word 'pornography' in a derogatory sense ("This is wicked evil pornography and you should start packing for the afterlife!"). I read it as saying it's in the style of porn - very very soft porn I guess. This because of the way the girtl is posed, arms upraised to expose the breats to viwe, eyes on the viewer, and the passive 'feel' of the image overall. It's a corny cliched pose, and porn is always corny and cliched. (God, I sound like the Pope of aesthetics, delivering judgements on porn!)

 

Nothing wrong with good porn.

 

But what you were after, I think, was glamour, which this is not. Well, not successfully, anyway. The light is too washed-out and unflattering (oddly enough, porn frequently doesn't bother to flatter)the flash-shadows too harsh.

 

Anyway, getting at last to my eral point: I thnik yuo've stumbled across a very interesting mixture of 2 genres here, porn and glam. Have a look at the work of Bill Henson (Australian art photog, repersented by Oxley Galleries, and the gallery website is about the only place on the web you can see his work). He uses light like this, tho more sophisticated (ought to be, considering the equipment art his disposal), and in similar settings (he favours the urban fringe, a landscape of spiritual desolation populated by wraithes of the lost). He wouldn't pose a model like this, but you'll find your own way of course.

 

Incidentally, she'd look better centred.

Of course, this wasn't how it was planned -- equipment and scheduling problems from a first shoot and getting the first model and traffic problem kept us from getting to location until the sun went down and not wanting to waste a day's time, I went ahead. Incidentally, this young woman is easily 6 feet tall, if you can believe it. These days I'd Photoshop it better and now know how, so this is somewhat historical.

 

I'll look up the work of the photographer you mentioned. Most interesting comment.

 

Thanks.

 

John