The making of a fine art nude

Back in the fall of 2010 I spent a weekend shooting lingerie, shibari and fine art nudes with four different models at the Hazelton Hotel.  Most of the shooting was done with a Phase One P65+ and Phase One DF with profoto strobes and a variety of light modifiers.  But a few days before the shoot, after a long wait, my Arca Swiss M-Monolith view camera arrived.  I just had to unpack it, set it up and give it a go.

Since a view camera is a slow, contemplative tool, it is not suited to shooting fashion, glamour, or most of what I was doing that weekend.  But shooting artistic nudes?  Sure, why not?  I set up the Arca in the living room and framed the camera on the doors to the balcony of the suite before the model arrived.  This gave me time to focus the camera and set up the framing.  When the model arrived, I merely showed her where I wanted to photograph her.

The model, (Erin), was a very experienced nude model, and is herself an artist.  She was perfect.  Not only was her body beautifully proportioned, she knew how to pose fabulously creating interesting lines within the frame.

The problem with the world is that the dynamic range (the range of light and shadows) can sometimes be far beyond the dynamic range of film or a digital sensor.  The P65+ I paired with the Arca Swiss has about as good a dynamic range as one can get now, but the scene I was capturing every time I pressed the cable release did extend beyond that which could be captured by a single exposure.   And given that it was my first shoot with the Arca, I had forgotten to bring a sync cable to use fill flash to balance the internal light with the more powerful sunlight coming through the balcony.  Consequently, the raw capture was exposed perfectly (or at least as I wanted it) for the model, missed the shadows inside the room, and was blown out in the highlights outside.

But, processing the raw files three times (as captured, pushed two stops, and pulled two stops) in Capture One Pro, layering the files and masking selected portions of each of the three layers reveals enough of the shadows inside the room, and retains the highlight detail outside.  Here is one of those shots, at pulled two stops, as shot, and pushed two stops.

Clearly, the image as captured was just fine, but not fine art; there are details in the shadows of the drapes that I wanted to recover, and the outside buildings are pretty blown out.  The image underexposed by two stops reveals the details in the buildings outside the room but blocks up the shadows in Erin’s body a bit too much for my liking.  And the image overexposed by two stops reveals the details in the drapes, while totally blowing out large areas of the background and balcony.

Layering these images, masking out the portions that are undesirable produces an image that I am pleased with:  the folds in the drapes are present but not distracting;  there is some detail in the background buildings above the steam; and Erin’s beautiful pose is the centrepiece.

Erin, artistic nude at the Hazelton Hotel. Arca Swiss M Monolith, Schneider Kreuznach Apo Digitar 72mm @ f8 for 0.5 seconds, P65+ digital back @ ISO 50; three layer TIFF files from a single capture to extend dynamic range.

Zoomify – how to share high resolution digital images

Zoomify is a gem of a program that helps you share super-high resolution images with clients.  Portraits, glamour, boudoir, and maternity type images do not require high resolution proofs.  But some of my clients have products or artwork in which high resolution proofs are ideal, but too big for email.

I stumbled upon a zoomify (http://www.zoomify.com/), which has free and paid versions and, surprise surprise, is built into photoshop CS5.

Take for example an image I shot for a local Hamilton artist.  The original shot

• is 60.5 megapixels and was shot on a Phase One P65+ digital back with
• the Mamiya 120mm digital macro lens in my studio, and
• was lit with two 1×4 foot profoto strip softboxes angled so that there would be no direct reflections from the metal in the cell phone, and the light would be even over the painting.

The small email version is nice, but it is difficult to evaluate.  Now check out the “zoomified image” by clicking on the link below and, go ahead, zoom in. You can see the paint strokes and the texture of the canvas.  He has a cell phone in the sky.  You can read the individual letters on the chips.

Theo Koutalos Mixed Media painting

Zoomify is an incredibly easy and efficient way to share super high resolution images with clients.  I love it.  So did Theo.  This was the first painting I shot for him.  He is bringing 25 more.

When purple photographs like blue – and what to do about it.

I have a client that makes one-of-a-kind hats, bags, and occasionally other garments.  Her stuff is pretty cool, and she is a great lady.  Because they are one-of-a-kind, she wants them photographed before she sells them.  Here is one of my favourite hats that she produced on a model in my studio.  Sometimes I just shoot the product, sometimes I put it on a model for fun. You can see (and purchase) more of her unique stuff here:  www.m2m-embellishments.com.

So here is the deal:  one day I am photographing a purple vest and it looks blue on my very large Macintosh monitor.  I always shoot tethered to the computer in the studio.  In any case, I think that I forgot to set the white balance.  So I put up my colour card and set a white balance and it is still blue.  I start thinking that I am losing my mind.

So I call one of “my guys”.  Everyone needs a guy.  For this, I call one of the guys I have bought my high end gear from:  Walter Borchenko .  Walter is the founder of B3K digital in Toronto and is the author of Capture-U, an independent source of online training for Phase One’s capture One software.  Capture One is a raw processing software package and is what I use for all of my raw processing.

Before I can even finish explaining exactly what was going on Walter says “let me guess, it is photographing blue”.  I sighed some relief.  He knew something about this.  He explained that manufacturers of garments were using ultraviolet exciters to trick our eyes into thinking that blue fabrics are actually purple.  It must be cheaper or something.  I don’t even care.  ”How do I fix this?… My client is coming to pick up the images today”.

It is easy to fix this in Capture One.  On the colour editor tab, use the eye dropper to select the blue of the garment.  Then, do a hue rotation until the colour of the garment is correct.  What is perfect about this is that none of the other colours in the image are affected.

So, if your purple is showing up blue, it just might be the ultraviolet exciters.  And if you need a copy of Capture One you can purchase it from Walter at B3K right on his web site.