Inspiration: Michael Magin

His website: http://www.zeitautomatik.com/

What is it about: female portraits and minimalist landscapes. 

Has it been done before? Yes...well at the same time with photography it's probably been done before anyway. So is it stil worth showing? Yes, because although it's been done by many, he does it much better than most, and it's really pleasant to look at.

Notice that the ladies aforementioned happened to be lightly clothed if clothed at all. So if you are under eighteen run away. It's bad ! Click on that link if you want to see boobies, this is a clean blog (and I promise you that link has some great wild boobies images, the good stuff,  you won't regret it).

Anyway, it is very clean work, with few pictures I wouldn't keep in the portfolio. Mostly digital work with very very proper artificial (I believe) lighting, and some medium format. Gentle color treatment, refined and all. See for yourselves :)

Post processing : digital trends & effects

By being a film integrist, I have been preventing myself from achieving a lot of things. Limiting myself to film has been pulling my creativity down. Yes larger format make pictures that are nicer that smaller formats. B&W film does destroy digital B&W, no doubt about it. But it's time for me to move on.

It happens to be that life is in color (duh), and that it is like adding 100 variables to the photographic equation, and as many possibilities. It also happens that creativity need trial and work, and the more the better. Finally, those "computers" everybody talks so much about - Oppan Grandma Style ! - do allow a lot of things.

So I got a Nikon D600 and I will force myself into digital for the next 3 months at least, no matter what.

Of course I need inspiration, and oh boy there are a lot of digital artists around ! And that's the problem really. What happens it that trends emerge, people start doing the same effects over and over again. So  I am going to talk about two of the ones that emerge, and because it's about being inspired, I'll show you examples of photographers who, in my humble opinion, do it great. Then feel free to recombine it to find your own style !

I'll also briefly explain how to do it.

1/ One of them is what I call the Florence and the Machine trend: hipstery soft tones with people tripping in the forest or a nice looking prairie, like a commercial for "well being while high in Switzerland". Usually involves lots of grass, like this:

A typical example. Hippies everywhere I'm telling you: low contrast, twisted tones and all, and grass. Loads of grass on those shots, always. Courtesy of Anoushka

The actual Florence, see ? Told Ya. And behind more grass.

Who does it great? Well many in total, but very few compared to the number of attempts. I'll pick Luisa Möhle as an example of success (lots of grass here too). It's technically impecable, always well framed, colors used for the best:

How to do it:

• it's essentially a matter of place (with grass)
• saturation
• playing with curse by channel. 
• levels to create that low contrast
• there is no single recipe, just play with your software.

2/ An other trend is the "lets ads tons of fake halo, preferably red and blue, trend". Here again, the good and the bad coexist, I'll stick to the good :)

I'll use 3 photographers I already presented, Carlos Nunez, Benoit Paille, Hannes Caspar AKA "Bluecut", and myself (last shot). Notice that it can be very subtle:

Carlos Nunez

Benoit Paille

Hannes Caspar

this one's from me (645 film as opposed to others that are digital)

How to do it: same here, no recipe here again that work perfect every time:

• create a blank layer
• paint colors
• decrease opacity
• play with blending effects

Debate with myself on nude photography.

Yes you will see boobs in that post. Yet, I would very much expect you to read the text cause that's really the all point of it. For more boobs, butts or German / Japanese people putting random body parts in randoms anatomical cavities, I recommend Google.com . My blog would be way too disappointing :)

As promised, your reward for having to read stuff  / Model: Cindy Nocks

Photography is segmented into different genres, for the sake of nomenclature, for us to be able to qualify what we do, with words. Landscape, portrait, wildlife, architecture are the most common, simple and explicit segments. 

But have you noticed that in the much appreciated field of female imagery, we have been granted with an amazing amount of qualifiers: "beauty, glamour, parts, erotic, nude, art-nude, fine-art nude" etc. 

The last one is my favorite, bullshit at its best. So you qualify your own work as "fine-art", right. Sounds like Apple brainwashing millions that their products are innovative just because well, they said so. It also sounds super snobbish:

-"oh you do portraits, good for you.

- well you do boobs...

- no I do fine-art nude, it's very classy and technical, if you don't get it I can't help you"

Lol. The following would be closer to reality:

-"Damn I like boobs, I wanna take boob pictures. No wait, it's going to look like I like boobs then. Hum... I should make it sound arty so it'd become fancy and stuff. Fine-art nude? there is such bullshit as fine-art nude? Ah ah bingo ! That will do just fine !"

Because dear reader, in art, the more bullshit the outcome (photograph, painting etc), the fancier the art words to describe it. It's supposed to make the random peons feel like they just don't get it. Applies great to the field painting. Visualize, one line of black pain on a plain white wall, some 130 pound hipster scratching his chin :

-"Oh my ! such deconstructed sophistication in the way he processes the subliminal aspects of post modernist whatever crap and I'll finish that sentence later. Any body have cocaine? I ran out at 9am."

Not it's not the traffic of my blog, it's a Miro "painting". I have actually seen this in its museum, the black part on the right is not part of it, probably just a bad picture.

And here we are, all elements in place for the debate: 

1. Is taking picture of nude attractive ladies just a crap excuse to see tits? 
2. Can we separate art nude from erotic photography?
3. Does it even matter?

1/ Yes. Nude photography is about looking at naked people, of course. Keep in mind until the end of this post than I will never denied that. Landscape is about landscapes no? The only difference is the layer of guilt that was added by milleniums of religious retardation, making us use arty words to cover up a shameful thing. So motivation for doing it? Well it's a three way thing between the model, the photographers, the viewer. 

• For the photographer, voyeurism is so obvious that denying is foolish. Now I'm not saying it's necessary sexual, one can perfectly find the human body very aesthetical. I find that a well built male is a good looking thing, and that is totally unrelated to my sexual preferences (boobs, clearly). It is about capturing something you love to look at in a way that you enjoy to look at it. Period. And we all like a good looking naked lady. Actually you could replace naked lady by naked dude all along the post if you prefer.
• For the model, it's often a self esteem, exhibitionist thing. I don't mean that models walk around in trench coats near playgrounds, I mean that having your body made an object of desire is a powerful thing for the ego. Of course it can also be a job, but if you don't have any of that in you, you must be a very sad person posing naked just for money.
• For the viewer, it's like for the photographer except that they are passive (lazy wankers :-p ).

2/ Yes too. Plain simple:  composition, exposure, creativity still applies. The difference between plain erotic and art nude is simply the graphical, visual value of the image beyond the desirability of the person who's on it. Desirable lady in sexy pose: erotic. Desirable lady in a pleasantly compose image with great mastery on details: art nude, even if still erotic. And that's precisely where I want to kill the hypocrisy: an art nude image is erotic too, it is erotic plus something else. The real segmentation should be between erotic and porn:

• Eroticism is creating the "desire to desire" (quote from some smart dude I forgot the name of, but I greatly agree with it). It's about arousing deep parts of your imagination.
• porn is about stimulating yourself in order to touch your genitals until you reach satisfaction.

Then yes we can separate those two things rather easily. I would never ever go at polishing the snake looking at a picture from Jan Scholz:

Jan Scholz AKA Micmojo, a guy who knows a thing or two about good nudes

Jan Scholz AKA Micmojo, a guy who knows a thing or two about good nudes

Jan Scholz AKA Micmojo, a guy who knows a thing or two about good nudes

3/ Does it even matter? I was invited to a thanksgiving dinner last Saturday, and as we opened wine bottles a wise guest said:

-"Don't know much about wine, don't care. Do I like it when I drink it? If yes, then it's good wine."

Some might say that practical approach is the best. I mean, look at the above displayed Miro painting: you can tell me all you want Miro is a genius, I still wouldn't put it in my garage. So if you like what you see, should you care if it's art nude? Or just a raw, nice looking pair of boobs, without any effort put into making the image worth anything on its own?

Well I think it matters. Firstly, if it didn't I would have wrote that post for nothing. Then it also matters because tastes evolve. At 12 you might think Katy Perry is the greatest artist in the world, to much later realize that Pearl Jam, Dream Theater, Brahms, or Duke Ellington are actually the real thing. The difference between the young and the older you? Time. You had time to be exposed to other things, opinions, critical ideas, and it shaped your mind into appreciating beauty. The same way candies are awesome at 6yo and gross you up after 3 pieces when you're 40yo, age at which you'll much prefer a fine Bourbon.

You might first look at nude photography to see boobs, you might do nude photography to see boobs, but you should ask yourself the question: if I don't put any effort into my pictures, I might just be doing masturbation material (nothing wrong with that). If I put some efforts into it, I can actually achieve to create a piece that mixes 3 awesome things together:

• A beautiful pictural representation, an object that is visually pleasant to the eye, maybe even a story telling piece that really sets a mood once put on a wall
• A nice looking naked person, because we all love that and fuck all that guilt.
• Make viewers happy, as well as the model who'll enjoy the way she's be capture, the way you perceived her through your camera

Add on: to answer the questions, all shots above are medium or large format film indeed.

Inspiration & technique: composition

I found some well composed shots on flickr from a London photographer : InvernoDreaming. 

I don't thing he is a professional photographer, therefore I believe he is a great example of what any amateur could achieve by working on composition instead of taking vulgar nudes, kittens or gross HDR corny landscapes. 

Indeed, he does a pretty good job at getting a beautiful well composed image out of what would appear as a boring subject to most people. These are the hardest one to get. Look at those.

 

Now if that gives you an itch and you feel like improving at composition, keep a few things in mind:

• Rule of third: balancing object so that they divide your image in thirds rather that in half. Horizon line, end of building, eyes of a person. It's not mandatory but should somehow part of your reflexion.

• Think of depth: if your farthest objects are as sharp as your foreground, they will project flat an participate in the composition in a totally different manner. Thing about your aperture and depth of field, try to project what you see in the frame into a flat image, see how things will be balanced. Maybe some things need to be in focus to participate to the composition, maybe not. On this next one I kept everything in focus to use wall & furnitures lines as part of the composition (bed wood, cabinet, wall line).

• How about diagonals? They can be obvious or linked to perspective, creates lines that give a sense of direction, create lines that balance objects across the image (as on the first picture of this post)

• And symmetric stuff? Use symetric stuff !

• F@$#% everything I just wrote :) Go for weird against the rules things, like on this picture.
• Somewhat split in thirds (ground, trees& sky / also subject on the right third looking left)
• But also in half, with a person's head way in the wrong place, and background focus

The evolution of tastes & photography

Warning: if you are not in the process of trying to find your artistic self, you might find this post boring. It's not a tutorial, a funny post or a guide of some kind. It's a reflection on evolution of personal tastes in art after watching Jaws 2 in bed (really, that's the end? just like that?).

Wyatt Neumann. What I now consider a great picture.

Still here? Ok. Well I am quite certain you've faced similar evolutions in your life: 

As a kid you only liked French fries, chicken and whatever was super sweet or much expected. You preferred milk to dark chocolate, and being forced to finish your vegetables was among those things that made life suck along with brushing your teeth and visiting that weird uncle. Then you grew up, and those things that felt bitter, tasteless, the same one that grossed you up as a kid started tasting good. 20 years later you prefer asparagus to potato waffles, you like dark chocolate, black coffee. You even have your tequila shots with salt and lemon :) 

An other one: who among you found jazz, classical music or technical progressive metal bands boring as hell. All you liked was a simple binary beat, a catchy melody and a few provocative words because well...gotta show the system you're unique ! Yeah, I did use to think that too. Then one day you're 30, and your fiancée forces you into a ballet or jazz festival. First you think of begging your way out but since you forgot your 2 years anniversary last week, you're gonna suck this one up. And Oh surprise! you actually find that subtile, pleasant, moving. You start searching the web, borrowing CDs, and as time goes by you develop a more sophisticated sense of "music listening", you hear the bass guitar, you catch more details, value more subtile effects. Then you go back to your teenage years CDs and past the nostalgia, it now sounds...childish. 

You evolve in your appreciation of art, weither you produce or consume art. I also do believe that in both cases, challenging yourself leads to a faster evolution. 

The main challenge for me is to be able to connect an sensation, a impression of what I want to achieve, with the actual end result. It like having that knowledge of how it should feel in the end, but not being able to get it out. Like those dreams when someone talks to you but you can't hear the words. If you don't see what I mean, the rest doesn't concern you. 

Making that connection takes time. It's a painful process. It first takes, in the case of photography, being in control of the tools. How can you connect an inner artistic desire to the final piece if you can't control the intermediary (i.e. the camera)? For this I recommend shooting full manual film. Because it's too expensive to afford screwing up.

When discovered studio lightning. Boring, everyone can do. 

Then I realized photographers like naked ladies. Boring.

Then, you need to get read of every catchy temptation. When I started shooting, a bit of bokeh, a halo of light, and yeeehaaa great picture! Then I started pushing contrast way too much, shooting fences in black and white and I was pretty happy with myself. Yeah, right. The best solution is overdose. Like the first time you ate tons of candy or chocolate to the point that it got you sick. Shoot that crap if you must, do those bad editing, make the mistakes and then, be hard on yourself. It's like a sauna that gets bad influences out of your brain. 

Then shoot what you haven't shot, or if you have, analyse your previous images, try to make it better every time. Even if it means redoing it over and over again with one little detail changed.

Off course the usual diptych period. Less boring but we all overdo it: matching images is a tricky exercise.

First revelation: medium format film. Started exposing better, using every element to compose my image. Better, but still girls in romantic poses.

Try to keep only your 15 best shots. Do the exercise, really. What will come out of that? You'll first pick the 3 obvious ones. Then you'll think "hum...but the next 12 are not that obvious, so really, I only have 3 photographs I'm truly happy with". And it's a good thing, you'r setting expectations to the next level.

You can only evolve properly if you listen to critics. Find critics who matured already, so that you don't have retarded comment from angry internet people. Critics from great photographers will come hard, but hell they will be useful.  Only look at the best of the best, the ultimate images from the greatest and dare to admit the gap between you and them. 

As long as you look into Flickr for comparison, you'll feel great with any picture properly framed and exposed.  No offense FlickR users, I've seen great stuff there too, but admit it: finding raw talent on Flickr it's like searching for a needle in a barn, you gotta stop uploading your entire memory cards.

Shoot tons. Be drastically self critical, get inspired by the best.




Finally, via a mix of mastering the tool (property of film, exposure,) and maturing skills (composition, etc.), I was able of pulling good images that did not include an attractive person of the opposite gender:

Inspiration: Wyatt Neumann

Wyatt Neumann is a director and photographer, making most of his career in advertising. More of a videographer, he has a very refined eye for photography and is able to achieve things that I envy. With nothing else but a scene, and what feels like a very spontaneous framing decision, he tells a good story. Most of his stuff seems to be 35mm film. I don't like all that he does, the white trash portraits is something I've seen too much, but that's personal, but I like the risks he takes on some portraits.

We will of course notice that a good story telling image with a strong feel has nothing to do with pixels, sharpness, or any of those things a lot of people try to sell you. It's like painting, it's a matter of composition, colors, point of view.

His site here. A personal selection there: