There’s not much of today left, but if you get a chance pop over to Java’s Bachelor Pad and check out Harlean Carpenter (who is a fiction), the Christmas Cutie for December 5. The photo was taken by yours truly. We weren’t expecting to be honored over there this year, but Christmas came a little bit early. Hooray!
There’s a bunch of fun stuff going on in the Pinup Realm to tell you about, but let’s start with this one: Maskera! Maskera is a superhero who never runs.
The backstory for the project (rather than for the hero herself) is that I shot a series of pictures of Harlean Carpenter (who is a fiction) on a green screen. They came out pretty well, so Harlean then worked her contacts to find a cartoonist to draw some villains and whatnot to match her action poses. Those turned out to be completely awesome.
“I can’t wait to see it in print!” the artist said. Until that moment Miss Carpenter the Fiction had not considered print. But what the heck? We know an awesome printer, and it would be a hoot to make an actual comic book. I will be writing the story, but honestly it’s more about the great poses of Harlean and the whimsical-yet-menacing bad guys of Michael O’Connor. Oh, no! It’s Angry Meteor!
We’re doing this thing through Kickstarter. For those unfamiliar, it’s a system that allows people to pledge support for a project, but only if the project actually happens. So you say, “Hell, yeah! I want a comic! And a poster!” and then if and only if the project meets its goals will you be charged. This means we can make sure we reach a certain threshold before getting a bunch of stuff printed, and it means you kids out there in cyberland can make sure you get your money’s worth.
So hop on over and take a look! It’s sure to be a hoot!
I haven’t mentioned in these pages yet that Harlean Carpenter (who is a fiction) and I are making a magazine. Not some web-zine, either, but a nice, substantial print magazine called The Poetic Pinup Revue. The magazine is large, printed on good, heavy paper, and built to last. As you might guess by the title, it’s a book that juxtaposes beautiful images (that lean toward the pinup genre) and carefully-matched poetry. Harlean painstakingly laid the text into the images so that each enhances the other.
Yes, I am aware that I just took the Post Office to task for encouraging the slaughter of trees. This is the kind of thing paper should be used for. It’s bold, sturdy, and carries the impact that only an 11×17-inch spread can. Some of the pages are simply awesome.
At least, I think they are. My contribution to the Revue was mainly technical, laying out the pages in Adobe Illustrator and for some images tweaking the color balance after converting from RGB to CMYK.
But… did I do it right? Should I have tweaked all the images, not just the ones that didn’t look right onscreen in the .pdf file? Black works a little funny in CMYK; will the images lose their richness and depth on the printed page? Is some awesome photographer out there going to cringe to see her own work poorly reproduced? Or, on the other hand, will the images be so beautifully rendered that we are flooded with submissions for the next issue? There’s really no way to know if I got the colors right until we see the actual magazine sprayed onto dead trees a few days from now.
The first print run had to be of a certain size to be cost-effective. That means each mistake is repeated that many times, but it also means that each gorgeous page will create a whole bunch of smiles and thoughtful expressions. Please, oh please, gods of ink and pulp, let them all be gorgeous.
No matter how it turns out, I’ll be letting you know here. For the lowdown on the magazine itself, swing on by PoeticPinupRevue.com.
Harlean (who is a fiction) has an ambitious shooting schedule set up. There are several magazines asking for submissions for Halloween spreads and contests, and she figures it’s time to get her fictitious face in them.
I am moderately less fictitious, and my role in all this is to take pictures.
Today’s shoot was zombie-themed, and we had a prop brain, of course. Once the serious shooting was done, I experimented a bit on myself, going for over-the-top dramatic lighting and (surprise) a bit of silliness.
Braaaaains!
Braaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnns!
Braaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiinnnssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!
Brains.
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.
Santa has excellent modeling talent
This is also the most important time for many charities to raise funds, and this year my sweetie and I thought we would help. We recruited Harlean Carpenter and Santa Claus for a photo shoot, fed them sandwiches (although Santa is on a very careful diet these days), and the above image is the result. It turns out that was the very first picture we took, out of well over two hundred. Go figure. It was a fun day, for sure. (Thanks also to Rick Markus for his excellent work with the reflector.)
Now you can share in the Christmasy fun and support two worthy charities at the same time!
The charities:
You are all familiar with the Salvation Army, and they get a chunk of dough for each pack of cards sold. The other beneficiary is a group called Pinup Angels, who will use the money to send care packages to troops serving overseas.
How you can help:
The first way to help, obviously, is to buy cards. A pack of 20 cards goes for only $15 – a ridiculously low price if you ask me. All we need is a shipping address and an email address. We will bill you though PayPal (no PayPal account is necessary) and send you your cards. It’s easy!
If you’re old-fashioned or the name “PayPal” makes your head rotate 360 degrees, I’m sure we can work out alternate payment, but the system really is pretty seamless these days.
Shipping is free in the US. For Canada, add $1US for the first pack and $0.50US for each additional pack. For European shipments add $3 for the first pack and $0.90 for each additional pack.
The second way to help, the way you can be really, really cool and earn some badly needed karma after all the things you’ve done this year is to help us sell the cards. To be honest, we’re depending on help from all our friends to get word out and flog these things far and wide. So please, please, hit up your co-workers and friends with a light but persistent pitch. Collect email addresses and we will do the rest. (We will never, ever, use the emails collected this way for anything other than billing. There shall be no spam.)
Help Now!
Here’s the link to the official Web site, with contact information and whatnot. Order your super-awesome cards and start feeling good about the holidays.
This month’s photo contest at Pinup Lifestyle includes an entry shot by yours truly once again.
Infinite photographers!
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!
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.
My first print photo credit (click to see full-size).
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!
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.
