Posts in Category: Smyrna Studio

Devious Beauty in Red Silk

Good scotch, a fine cigar, soft silks, a beautiful woman.  What more could a photographer possibly want?

It’s not often I get another photographer in front of my camera, but I was blessed with that opportunity this weekend.   Below the fold are the first few edits from a marathon 5+ hour session with this lovely lady.

Yep, they’re not safe for work. Nudity, tobacco and alcohol abound beyond the fold.   I’m not sure which is more offensive to the prudes, to be honest.

Beauty in Chains

What started as a simple lighting test to experiment with lighting angles, fabric textures and skin textures or muscle highlights ended up becoming a much more intense shoot than planned.  As you’ll see from the images below the fold, the look is intense, textured, detailed and appears to have a fairly complex lighting setup.

What i used, however, is anything but complex.  I used two speedlights inside 30 inch softboxes with radio slaves.  For most shots they were set to 1/8 power and set perpendicular to and about 6 inches from the wall and about 3 feet from the model.  They’re above the model’s head and tilted down to give a good wash of light over her body and still throw a soft hightligh on the wall.   Because they’re softboxes insted of grids, i got a good highlight on the chains and cloth as well.

I would have preferred either larger softboxes or stip boxes to give me a fully parallel light rather than the downward cast light I have now.  However, sofboxes large enough (72 or 80 inch would be perfect) would not have fit in the space we shot in and strip boxes that tall would have been almost as unwieldy and not given me the wash on the wall that I ended up liking very much.

The sescret to the complexity of the scenes is in the textures and contrast of the intricate cloth, the way it’s draped and the contrast with the wall behind it. The mix of hard chain with the soft silk of the cloth is mirrored in the intense textures in the model’s skin.  Even the smooth skin of the lower back has an unusually pronounced texture.

I’ve included a quick snap of the light and prop setup that shows the space we were shooting in (my bedroom, in this instance).  So jump into the comments and tell me how you’d shoot something like this or if this inspired you to shoot something, post it somewhere then come back here and etell us about it.

The images below are not safe for work.  The nudity is mostly implied, but it bondage and eroticism isn’t implied,  it’s right out in the open for anyone to seel.

A Calamity in Silk

The lovely Calamity Janet, one of my favorite redheads to grace my studio this year showed me how much fun several yards of yellow silk can be.

As usual, Not Safe For Work (NSFW). You’ve been warned.

A night of low-key photography – part 2

With every shoot I do, I make an effort to revisit the shoot after some time has passed in order to look at the shots with a fresh eye.   I’ll also do this after developing a new technique or just to experiment and see if I can come up with anything neat or show worthy.

I added quite a few images to the gallery of my low-key experiment shoot with Corrie back in January.   Some of the new images are, in my opinion, my best low-key work to date, though there is one stunning high-key image included.  I just can’t seem to get away from bright lights and hard shadows.

So, sit back and enjoy the show.  I’d love to hear from all of you with comments, criticisms, suggestions or anything else you want to say or ask.

The gallery is behind the cut because, as you should already expect from me, they’re Not Safe For Work (NSFW).

Back in the Studio with Pris

I shot this lovely lady mid last year in a relatively impromptu session. We had a hell of a lot of fun and talked about another session.  Life, as it does, gets in the way sometimes and it took until April of this year to get back together for another evening of fun and photos.

Rather than go on and on about this beautiful, vibrant and awesome woman, I’ll let the photos speak for me.  Enjoy.

An experiment in low-key photography. – Part 2

I took some time recently to complete my finishing touches on the first shoot of 2015.  There may be a few more gems buried in the shoot, but I am extremely pleased with the results so far.  I hope you will be too.

As you probably already knew, the images past the cut are NSFW.

First shoot with a brunette Valkyrie.

2015 has definitely started off with a bang.  Two full days of shooting in a row behind me and now I get to edit and finish the sets.  In the mean time, here is a teaser for the several sets I shot of a new model; Valkyrie.  As always, nudity behind the cut because people are prudes.

(NSFW)

First shoot of 2015 – A Low Key Shoot.

I’ve been experimenting with low-key lighting and trying to achieve a very soft, body-molding look for a while.  Regular readers have seen some of the results of that experimentation in previous posts.

All of that experimentation came together for the first shoot of 2015 tonight.  The setup is deceptively simple with a black cloth backdrop, an SB-910 speedlight in a 24inch softbox to the right (photographer’s right) of the model.   I set the speedlight to 1/4 power and shot at F/22 or F/18 @ 1/125 and ISO 100.  This gave me a completely dark room with the only light showing up on frame being the speedlight.

The results were everything I had hoped they’d be. The model was very fun to work with and I’ll be shooting her often over the coming year.  With the exception of the image labeled ‘Fire Down Below’, the only editing on these is cropping and b/w conversion and, when needed, a touch of sharpening.  ‘Fire Down Below’ had a bit of color bump, clarity and sharpening to get the look I wanted. I also brought the exposure up slightly on it.

As you probably already guessed, these images are NOT safe for work.  Click the ‘continue reading’ link to see the photos.   And as always, enjoy and I look forward to your feedback.

Classical Nudes

For quite a while now, most of my work has trended towards high key lighting, almost to the point that it’s become somewhat of a signature for me. As an example, these are the out-takes from a set called “A Sleazy Drag King Shoot” due for publication next month.   Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been pushing my lighting experimentation in the other direction. Low key, softer and more subtle lighting. Below the fold are a couple of nudes from last week that give a strong sense of the classical painters of the last century. Even though the lighting is very simple (1 strobe with softbox and a single incandescent in the room), and with just a little bit of work in Lightroom, I’m very happy with how these came out.

Implied nudity behind the fold. May or may not be NSFW depending on how picky your HR department is.

Nudes in Black and White

It has been a while since I last posted any of the nude and risqué sets I shoot. These images are from a set that was more of an experiment than a planned session.

It does not take bunches of lights and backdrops and modifiers and other gear to get a very soft, sensual look in a nude set. Often, simplicity is more effective than an “engineered” approach.

I could go on for another few thousand words, but I would much rather let the images speak for themselves. All of these but one were shot with a single speed light on a stand with a 12×8 soft box, The last one was pure available light and is pretty much a candid taken while the model was relaxing g after the shoot.

I shouldn’t have to say this but the images after the fold are Not Safe For Work. Nudity abounds beyond the fold. Enjoy.