Category Archives: Photography

Vote Early, Vote Often

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Harlean Carpenter (who is a fiction) and I have entered photos in a couple of contests this month. One is based on popular votes, while the other… might be, but it’s hard to tell.

First, the Photobucket contest. It’s a Valentine’s sort of thing, featuring happy couples. It’s hard to tell who that shaggy guy is that’s with her, but they sure do make a cute couple. We’ve moved up smartly to 263rd place as of this writing. VOTE NOW! Voting ends tomorrow… unless it doesn’t.

Next, the Pinup Lifestyle contest. The theme this month is “on the phone” and the contest has more entries than ever — some are good, others not-so, but there’s only so many permutations of the same damn pose you can do. I’m happy to say that in this cluttered field my shot of Harlean shines like a beacon of creativity and humor in an otherwise homogeneous field.

You can vote for up to five images in that contest, and there are some others that are pretty good, if variations on the same theme. Depending on where you work, you might want to wait until you get home to look through the entries.

From an execution standpoint, our primitive lights made things particularly challenging for the technicians in the lab on this shoot. Our intrepid editor did an excellent job pulling the photo from the noise, as it were, but soon all this will be changing. Yep, we’re buying gear. Just tonight I got the shipping confirmation on a pair of pretty darn good studio strobes, stands, and those crazy umbrella-things. Light boxes will be following shortly.

I’ve been looking at a lot of professional photography lately, and an amazing amount of it seems pretty damn boring. That’s the great thing about a model like Harlean. As a fiction created to create fiction, she knows the value of a good story. I hope I can master the new equipment and harness it to help her tell her tales.

One thing for sure, I won’t be able to blame the lights anymore.

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Doing a Shoot Tonight!

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Here’s a shot of the set (without lights). Can you guess what the theme is?

Pirate Set

Set for tonight's shoot with Harlean Carpenter

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After the Shoot

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Did a photo shoot with Cricket LaFaux last night. At some point I’ll show you some of the pics. Here’s the living room at the end of the evening.

After the Shoot

The aftermath of a photo shoot with Cricket LaFaux

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This Month in Pinup Lifestyle

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This month’s photo contest at Pinup Lifestyle includes an entry shot by yours truly once again.

Infinite photographers!


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!

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This Week’s Self-Portrait

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This wasn’t intended to be a self-portrait; I was working on a shoot with Harlean Carpenter (who is a fiction) and realized after a series of shots that I was in the picture also. I like the image, though. It’s a picture of me taking a picture of Harlean.

Keep Away From Childten

Keep Away From Children

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Self-Portrait Friday!

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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.

a flashlight, a dark room, and a long exposure

a flashlight, a dark room, and a long exposure

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.

 

direct hit with one of the flashlights, then my toe slipped off the shutter release

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.

 

two flashlights in a dark room

a decent shot, but with the same expression on both sides

This was a test shot while I was adjusting the aperture. It came out pretty cool, if you ask me.

 

Jerry Seeger self-portrait

finally held still enough, but didn't get enough light on the frowny side

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.

 

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Your Vote is Needed!

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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).

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Photo Credit!

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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.

Harlean Carpenter in Bachelor Pad Magazine

My first print photo credit (click to see full-size).


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.

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Happy Halloween!

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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!

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Self-Portrait Friday

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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.

Self-Portrait, October 23, 2009

Self-Portrait, October 23, 2009


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.

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My Life in the USA

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Moving to California hasn’t affected me much…

pumps

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A Typical Night at Home

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My sweetie and I kicking back after a hard day's work

My sweetie and me, kicking back after a hard day's work

There’s nothing like putting one’s feet up after a long day counting your gold and precious gems.

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Some Pictures I Took

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Harlean Carpenter, photographed by Jerry Seeger

Harlean Carpenter, photographed by Jerry Seeger

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.

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Getting Shaggy!

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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.

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