venicia_l

Tomato and garden gloves in the first rays of the sun. Part of a

commercial project of stylized studio and location images.

It's a Macro. They are nasturtium petals. Nasturtiums are small orange, red and white flowers. About 35-40 mm in diameter.

VL

I think the uncertainty of not knowing exactly when the camera is going to shoot results in a certain facial expression of yours that is very compelling and charming and is a constant through many of your images. It looks wild and innocent at the same time. As though the model has been suddenly surprised by a photographer intruding on the scene. "Like a deer caught in the headlights." It's lovely.

VL

Tamara, there is nothing boring about your portfolio. Repetitive, yes. But if repetition is boring to a particular viewer, that is his or her problem, not yours. I am fascinated not only by the variation you have been able to apply to these images, but to your obvious energy and dedication to the project. The fact that you are able to control the composition with the camera pointed at you is remarkable. Are you using software to see the image on the computer screen before you shoot, or do you just set up the shot, look into the lens and snap the shutter? Your images involve high degrees of color editing. This amount of manipulation requires starting with 16-bit RAW files if the image is going to print. Are your images that large, or only intended for monitor display as we see here? Don't ever stop what you're doing because someone else says this work is boring. You are doing exactly what any good artist must do. It will be interesting to see what you do if you start serious work with another model, but somehow I feel that your best work may always be of your own image.

VL

Lovely.

VL

This cat is just yawning! But what a fierce looking shot. The whiskers curling down from the upper lip give the impression of fangs, adding to the fierce look. And those eyes!

VL

in its surreal quality. I'm trying to imagine if you had shot before that one last tourist had departed - for human scale and perspective.

VL

You may never make a better image than this! Nor one more commercially viable. Make a limited edition run and a poster from this. This image can generate income indefinitely.

VL

Great shot. This is almost a duplicate of a shot by Galen Rowell in one of his books. He labeled his shot "Arnold Schwatzengoat" or something like that because the goat was so muscular and agile, showing off that he could climb the sheer wall effortlessly.

VL

It's pretty much a straight shot. Of course, I cropped it in Photoshop where I also applied a sophisticated unsharp masking program called FlexSharp to the 16 bit TIF that resulted from the Fuji Raw file. The image was converted using Adobe 98 color space, then converted again to sRGB for Web display. All that is pretty straightforward processing of a digital camera file. But there are no image edits or color distortions. The image you see is what I saw in the viewfinder.

VL

I love abstract images. This is striking. The mirror image iand near-perfect symmetry of the leaf is remarkable. The lighting is very simple but seems to make the texture glow from within. Excellent eye.

(edit) And your portfolio is very good. I think this is the best piece so far.

VL

A repost image to correct severe JPEG artifacts. Black plexi, black

background, one strobe through an umbrella.

Thanks for the comments. The composition is a bit busy. It's an exercise in textures - very smooth, rough, most of them natural, one man-made (the cheesecloth). It's quite sharp in a 16 x 20 print. It does suffer here due to JPEG compression. I've tried several times to improve the Web image and it still looses quite a bit.

VL

One electronic flash through umbrella, camera left. Another as bare

bulb to the right to open the shadows.

VL

Late afternoon during a break in the rain clouds.

VL

You have a magnificent portfolio. I'm a sucker for abstracts. Yours are great. There's nothing to critique about these kinds of images. One likes this stuff, or not. This is visually appealling for its texture, light, mystery.

Super!

VL