Archive for ‘Photography’
This month’s photo contest at Pinup Lifestyle includes an entry shot by yours truly once again.
The theme this month is “In the Bathtub”, and we did a location shoot where there is a bathroom large enough to maneuver in. Happily, the bathroom was also very bright, giving me more latitude with shots than I’m used to having, without incurring ridiculous exposure times. Plentiful mirrors improved the light even more, but provided all sorts of challenges when it came to avoiding inadvertent self-portraits. Here’s one of my favorites from the shoot:

That is not the one entered in the contest, however! You’ll have to go visit the contest to see that one. Oh, and hey, while you’re there, go ahead and toss us a vote, why don’t you? There are lots of good entries, so take some time to look around and spend your other four votes. It seems like month-to-month the quality of the entries is steadily rising. I think the quality of my shots is steadily improving, too. Hooray!
It’s been a while since I’ve turned the camera on myself, but today I joined Pinup Lifestyle and was looking for a good photo to put up for my profile. I call myself a photographer over there, so I wanted the picture to be a good one. I used one of my old favorites from long ago, but that got me to thinking about some other things to experiment with.
Tonight I closed myself in a dark room with my camera (on tripod, set to ‘bulb’), remote shutter release (operated with my toes), and a pair of flashlights. My goal was to open the shutter, shine a light on one side of my face with one expression, then shine a light on the other side of my face with a different expression.
I was not entirely successful.
This is an early attempt using one flashlight. I just couldn’t keep still enough while also dealing with the lighting. When I went to two flashlights things got better, but getting the two sides of my face exposed equally proved impossible.
Sometimes when things go wrong, however, they can come out all right. My toe slipped off the shutter release on this one, before I got to the second flashlight. After this shot I realized that I was overexposing where the flashlights hit and I cranked the aperture way down. Things got better after that.
This was a test shot while I was adjusting the aperture. It came out pretty cool, if you ask me.
Given infinite time and infinite patience, I think I would have got the shot. I had neither, however, and when I began to like my test shots more than the actual attempts I decided I’d done enough. Sometimes an experiment doesn’t yield the results you expect, but that doesn’t mean the results aren’t interesting.
Harlean Carpenter (who is a fiction) has a photo entered in a contest at Pinup Lifestyle. It’s a pretty cool picture. The winner is decided by public vote, and while there is some pretty strong competition, it’s realistic to think she has a shot. I (who is less of a fiction but not entirely real) took the picture, and I think it’s easily the best photo not taken in a professional studio with real photography lights.
The theme of this month’s contest is circus/carnival (or something like that). Some of the entries aren’t really on-theme, but a few really do capture the theme in a pinup style.
The thing is, judging by last month’s winner, it’s not always the best that wins. It’s the one that gets the most votes. Don’t let this injustice happen again! Pop on over to Pinup Lifestyle, vote for my fictitious friend, and then hang out a while to look at the other excellent photos (borderline safe for work).
Yep, a picture I took found its way to a print publication that people pay to read. The photo is of Harlean Carpenter (who is a fiction), and the publication is Bachelor Pad Magazine. While I can take but a tiny amount of credit for the appeal of the shot (most of it comes from the model, obviously), I’m still pleased to have helped out.
The magazine itself is pretty cool. It’s a small operation, a labor of love, and worth a look – especially if you’re a fan of pinup-style photography. “For Mature Readers” it says on the cover, which is what separates it from Maxim and the rest of that lot. In the most recent issue is an article about Naked Girls Reading, a… show? performance? franchise? in which women with no clothes on read literature out loud.
It’s a bit off-topic but one of the advertisers in this month’s issue features a photo of Shelby, who is “adorable” in the words of the fictitious Harlean, and who also happens to be bicycling a bajillion miles (give or take) in the near future to raise money to fight diabetes. Oddly buried is the fact that donations will be matched by Dignity Memorial Network. Your generosity will be doubled! Currently Shelby is way behind her friends in fundraising – help her catch up!
If that one’s not your cup of tea, Harlean keeps a list of noteworthy charity events at her blog: http://poeticpinup.com/Fundraisers.html.
While I haven’t managed to separate my brain from my work long enough to get fiction flowing, I did manage to take time out to catch a Halloween shoot with Harlean Carpenter, self-created fiction. Here are a few of the shots. Enjoy!
The rest of the gallery can be found at Poetic Pinup. Take a look!
Since I don’t have much to say, really, what with my brain being off in technology-land, I thought I’d share the result of this week’s Self-Portrait Friday. I have not been consistent with this tradition at all, but today I grabbed the camera and shot myself.
In case you haven’t picked up on this, most of the pictures in this blog can be expanded by clicking on them. Not that there’s much reason to in this case, but there you go.
Harlean Carpenter, the woman behind PoeticPinup.com, has a new photo gallery up. The big news about this particular gallery is that I’m the photographer. Yep, that’s right, I pulled out my big ol’ camera and entered the world of fashion photography. Some of the pictures came out pretty well, thanks mostly to the experience of the model knowing what she wanted and how to get it. Still, every once in a while I came up with some good advice.
I learned quite a bit while I was at it. I’ll have more opportunities to work with Harlean, and hopefully over time my skills will improve. Also, someday I might have better lights and a better tripod. Crazy!
Harlean Carpenter is a fiction created to create fiction. She is also a pinup model, though still a fiction.
Just goofing around a bit the other day; My hair’s been getting pretty long and I was curious how it looked. I took advantage of the time-lapse repeat picture of my phone. After WAY more futzing around than is justified by the result, here is what I ended up with.
Yep, this is how I spend my time.
How I looked when I woke up this morning.

Photography























