“What do you guys like to do”

Leaving it fairly open ended for them to answer. At times I hear things like “Not much”, and, it’s not wrong to say that maybe they just lead busy lives and like to come home at the end of the day and relax. I get it, I can totally relate to this. Every winter I practically hybrinate in front of my TV.

Though when I asked Cecilia and Patrick this, the first thing out of their mouth (nearly in stereo) was “We like camping”.

I will be photographing Cecilia and Patrick’s wedding on July 8th this year.

I’ve been working on stock images for some time, but mostly within the art, scenery and travel category. Lately though I’ve had some spurts of inspiration while thinking about career, life and trying to make it in this world. Which, as a self employed person is a thing I think about on a daily basis.

Here we have Shannon Clarke, depicting a woman climbing up the corporate ladder. A strong, beautiful and confident young lady making her way in this world on her own. I wanted to use a strong backing light from the sun to suggest an uplifting emotion, or a power grater than the individual driving them to succeed.

Overhead there is one Nikon SB-910 through a Lastolite EZ-Box set at around 1/2 power. Triggered by Elinchrome Skyports Shot on the Nikon D700 through the Nikon 24-70 F.2.8G Af-s ED at around 5.6 to F3.5 @ 1/125th 400ISO. Give or take 2/3 of a stop in regards to the shutter time or aperture.

Shannon is a fitness instructor, writer and model. She’s a regular contributor to blogs such as Bodybuilding.com and Askmen.com . You can also check some of her modeling on Model Mayhem.

I asked Shannon to work with me on this project because I was looking for someone who was in great shape that wouldn’t require a huge amount of post production, or “liquifing” for those of you familiar with the term. Why that is, is because when it comes to stock photos, less is more. The more editing you do to picture the more pixels become distorted and the less printable the images become. One of the best learning moments I had was when a photo that though was brilliant, which I spent hours editing was vehemently rejected due to pixillation, probably due to excessive editing or other factors. You have to be very careful to take a good photo within the camera and allow the buyer of the photo to make the changes that they want on their own. Basically, you want to produce a clean product and I knew that I could do that with Shannon. Hopefully we’ll all get to see her in more of my work soon!

Credits:

Thanks again to my friends Karin and Hayley for helping out!

MUA: Karin Woodard 

Hair Styling: Bella-H Hair Desgin (Hayley)

Wardrobe and Modeling: Shannon Clarke

Before I begin writing this, you should know that images below are nudes. So if you’re at work maybe just save it for later or when you can read and look with out interruption or sudden suspension of employment. 

For a long time I’ve been looking at sites like Me in my place. Great photos of some pretty amazing women. However the big difference between that and some of the other glam photos out there is a lack of touch up. The Photo touch up pro ads that you see all over the internet are a bit disturbing to me. We already have a pretty distorted view of reality when it comes to self image.

I like the idea of photo shoot I might do with my wife after making love, using whatever camera I had lying around and whatever light just happen to be coming into the room. There’s something so intrinsically playful and naturally beautiful. This is how boudiour photos started this way, as far I as know; with couples taking dirty photos of each other.

That used to happen to me a lot actually – but you’ll never see those photos. No, there are just for me and that other person in the room. Secrets that I will share with no one.

These are about capturing that very intimate and personal moment. The one that we all fantasize about, where the sex was good and the moments after were even better. This is the root of a really deep connection to another human being. How difficult is it to get that on camera with out having the images seem to contrived, or conceded. We’re constantly inundated with stranger than fiction ideas of beauty. That kind of imagery, while totally fun to look at lacks a lot of soul. It lacks the free wheeling creativity that comes when you can totally trust yourself enough to take nude photos.

For this shoot I used my Mamiya 645M Pro with a 150mm f/2.8 C series Mamiya lens, Illford HP5+ 400 shot at 1600 ISO. XTOL Stock solution to develop.

Credits

Model: Danailya | Hair Styling: Seada | Makeup: Mookie Salinas