Mastering Digital Nude Photography: The Serious Photographer’s Guide to High-Quality Digital Nude Photography Roderick Macdonald A DIVISION OF COURSE TECHNOLOGY ©2006 Thomson Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning Inc. Publisher and General Manager, All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in Thomson Course Technology PTR: any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, Stacy L. Hiquet recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written Associate Director of Marketing: permission from Thomson Course Technology PTR, except for the inclusion Sarah O’Donnell of brief quotations in a review. Manager of Editorial Services: The Thomson Course Technology PTR logo and related trade dress are Heather Talbot trademarks of Thomson Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning Inc., and may not be used without written permission. 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ISBN: 1-59863-026-1 eISBN: 1-59863-027-X Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005929820 Printed in Canada 06 07 08 09 10 TC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Thomson Course Technology PTR, a division of Thomson Learning Inc. 25 Thomson Place (cid:2)Boston, MA 02210 (cid:2) http://www.courseptr.com Dedication For Pippa, my lioness on the prowl, without whose ceaseless, inexhaustible, and loving attention and care this book wouldn't exist. Acknowledgments As always, thanks go first to the models, without whose patience, good humour, and endurance there would be no photography to write about: Akemi, Al, Alex, AlexFox, Amber, Angela, Ania, Aurora, Aylith, Belladonna, Bobbie, Carol, Cathy, Catya, Caz, CheekyLee, ChrissieB, Claire, ClaireV, Claudia, Eden, Eleanor-Jade, Eliz, Emily, Emmy, Emzy, Gemma Jansensswillen and Warner, Geo, Ginga Pixy, Heather, Honesty, Ilonka, Imogen1979, Jackie, JadedRed, Janine, Jessie, JoanneR, Kate, Kay, Kerry, Lala, Lexi, Lolly, LucyS, Martha, Naomi, NatalieK, Neku, Ness and Andy, Nichola, Opal, Phillippa, Pimperella, Rachel, RedLilly, Rose, Rosie, Ruby Blues, Saffy, Sarah Powell, SarahW, Seren, Sheena, Sherie, Sophia, Tabitha, Tess, Tia, Tomoko, Toria and Trevor, Vahit, Wicilha, Wil, Xidia, Yvonne, Zoey. Thanks also to the photographers whose image thumbnails are included in the screengrab of Imogen1979’s portfolio for permission to reproduce their work: Paul Alexander (www.Alternative-Images.com), Shaun Allatt (SJN Photography), Doug Faircloth, Richard Harrison (www.digitalmood.co.uk), Dave Heels, Gregory Mason, RoxeneBob, and Steve Sanford. Phil at Nomads in Cambridge was, as ever, unfailingly generous in lending pieces from his stunning hoard of ethnic jewelry, matched only by Thomas at Jackie’s Jewellery on Cambridge market. John Rothwell made and adapted some beautiful pieces of body jewelry for me. And Dixie’s Vintage Clothing, also on Cambridge market, came up with the goods, as always. Many coffee shops, but particularly the Black Cat, Copper Kettle, and Café Brazil in Cambridge, and Café Montmartre in Salisbury, put up with me and my laptop. Special thanks to Nancy and the crew at the Black Cat. In addition to unstinting moral support, Peter Chapman made detailed comments on various drafts, challenging and clarifying my conception of audience, in ways I hope have been beneficial to the writing of the book as a whole. Mike Nott’s sustained support and friendship were as invaluable as ever. Rick Martin contributed a number of valuable sug- gestions for the content and structure of the book, and continued to be a tough and insightful critic of both words and pictures. I’m also grateful to Rick for his help in defining different levels of modeling. Nigel Shevill gave me the benefit of his experience and reflections on many aspects of working with models and planning a shoot, and Chris Oakley set out, with a succinctness which had been eluding me for days, the main elements of photographic creativ- ity. Glen Jobson calibrated and fine-tuned the color settings of my Apple system to run better than ever, and gave me the clearest imaginable explanations of the whole black art of color profiling. Any failure to use, to the full, the sound advice and valuable information provided by these friends and colleagues must be laid entirely at my door. Megan Belanger, Acquisitions Editor extraordinaire at Thomson, dealt with my intransigent queries with tact, patience, good humour, and common sense. Project Editor Tonya Cupp dealt with and helped shape the text with intelligence, wit, and flair. Ian Farrell, Technical Editor, provided invaluable technical oversight and a sharp eye for detail. Design Technician Jill Flores has made the book look beautiful. Paula Rosales and Art Schmehling from GretagMacBeth provided valuable information. The Cambridge and Norwich Munches provided many wonderful models for my photography and, as always, gave me much to reflect on concerning our often ambiguous and mysterious relationships with our own sexuality, bodies, and desires—relationships which, I believe, underpin (consciously or not) the work of every photographer of the nude. Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii Equipment and Software . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 Sixteen Bits of RAW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Understanding Camera Raw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Getting Flexibility from 16 Bit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Shooting with Camera Raw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Camera Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Prints Versus the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Sensors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Lenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Stabilizing the Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Light and Lighting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Wish Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 How Many Cameras?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Computers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Desktop Versus Laptop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Storage and Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 In Place of the Mouse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Printers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Color Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 2 Choosing a Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Finding Your First Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Partners, Friends, Acquaintances, and Strangers . . . . . . . . . 104 Models on the Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Modeling Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Arranging the Shoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Avoiding Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 “Can I Bring a Chaperone?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 On First Contacting a Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Welcoming the Model to the Shoot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Makeup and Other Adornments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 The Human Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Disagreements During the Shoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 3 Shadow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Experimentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Positioning Lights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Backlight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Continuous Light. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Shadowless Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Candles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Attachments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Softboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 On-camera Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Other Attachments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 The Shoot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 4 Planning and Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Places to Shoot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Commercial Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Around the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Home Studio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Moving into the Shoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Shooting Faces and Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Themes and Poses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 vi Contents Postproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 5 Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Cataloging, Reviewing, Renaming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Making a CD for the Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 The Camera Raw Plug-in: Main Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Setting the Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 The Settings Tabs, Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 Adjusting the Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 Leaving Camera Raw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 The Settings Tabs, Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Adjusting Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Making Selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Cleaning Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 Altering Emphasis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 Playing with Filters and Blend Modes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Creating Monochrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354 Color Pass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 Introduction vii Introduction Why do photography of the nude? The human body is a unique photographic subject. Photography of the nude can be powerful, controversial, and transgressive, revealing in public spaces such as galleries, books, and on the Internet a totality of ourselves that is usually only shown to those with whom we are most intimate. We see ourselves reflected in images of the naked body. We see in images such as Figures 1 and 2 human beauty; but we also perceive our transience and mortality. In viewing these images, with their representations of innocence and knowingness, we experience both desire and fear, attraction and anxiety, curiosity and embarrassment, reverence and amusement. Figure 1 Human beauty. viii Introduction Figure 2 The body as landscape. Nude photography is now more popular than ever before. Digital photograph- ic technology combines with the Internet to make it easy for photographers to create nude images discreetly (without the need to send film out for processing) and then choose how widely they wish to disseminate them. In many countries this rapidly growing interest in the nude coincides with, and derives from, social movements such as gay liberation, which by challenging laws and taboos around different forms of sexuality also engendered much broader artistic freedoms. Who is this book for? The book is aimed at the intermediate or advanced photographer who’s looking to improve the quality and range of his or her photography. That means, typically, that you’re a photographer who has already made a serious start developing your skills in photography. You’re willing to invest a certain amount of money, but much more importantly, a considerable amount of time, developing your art and skills. The book contains ideas and techniques that will challenge and develop your creativity and encourage you to expand your boundaries; see Figure 3. Introduction ix Figure 3 The body in a landscape. The book’s also written on the assumption that you have something to say about the human body, about beauty, and about photography itself. I don’t mean that you have a “philosophy of photography” that you can set out in words. (I envy you if you do!) But if you’re serious enough about photo- graphy of the nude to have bought this book, then you’ll have a strong visual imagination and curiosity that impel and shape the images you create, and a direction (or number of directions) in which you want your work to develop; see Figure 4. Figure 4 An unusual view of a different subject.