nudes

12

Oct

2022

Steve Hanks Inspired Nudes

Steve Hanks Inspired Nudes

These three photos are from a series I did in the early 1990s. In a make shift photography studio with construction lights. I recently scanned the negatives. A lot of loss and damage to the negatives over the years. I spent some time fixing them up. They are not perfect but are still some of my most treasured photographs.

Inspired by a favourite artist: Steve Hanks. You can see his work here: Steve Hanks Work

Steve painted nudes but had much other material as well. Amazing water colors. The detail in his painting is unbelievable but the emotion is what draws you in. Unfortunately Steve passed away in 2015. HIs work lives on, though. Check it out. There are dozens of websites out there displaying his work.

I’ve also lost track of the model. Would love to shoot with her again even though more than 25 years have passed. Julie is somewhere in Florida, I believe.

I still have the quilt and now much better lights and modifiers, if anyone is interested mimicking more of Steve Hanks work...

I’ve also put these three photographs through a ‘painterly’ filter. You can see those on my Instagram Account: @portraits.by.martin The only way these are acceptable to Instagram is to either block out the nipples or make the photo into a painting.

I’ve converted a number of photos into paintings using various apps and Photoshop. Photoshop has a feature where you can add brush strokes to an image. It’s time consuming and sometimes doesn’t work but I’ve gotten some very cool ‘paintings’ this way.

21

Nov

2021

Photographing Nudes

Photographing Nudes

Photographing the Nude

One the last few years I’ve come across a lot of superbly photographed nudes through Instagram, Pinterest, 500px and some other venues. There are some really great photographers out there.

Growing up and as I started creating with photography, if I wanted to find decent inspiration, I had to look in bookstores and magazines. There were many, good and bad, but two fantastic artists come to mind that had wonderfully artistic eye.

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Robert Farber was and still is amazing. I have a book of his from 1991 (I purchased around that time) subtitled ’20 years of Farber Nudes’ or something like that. So, he has been doing this for a while. Real art, not just naked bodies. Definitely someone to emulate.

Steve Hanks, who passed away in 2015, was a renowned watercolour artist. I poured over his early nudes and have in the past tried to emulate some of his work. He painted a lot of other material besides nudes, all of it otherworldly.

The majority, well, all of the women that I’ve photographed nude have been friends or acquaintances. At great embarrassment to other friends and relatives, I used to ask just about everyone I met, the ladies, if they would be willing to pose for some nude art. I got a lot of ‘no thank you’ but persevered.

The photos I’m showing here, I’m adding a couple of edits, three of each using Lightroom and Photoshop.

I was never interested in just shooting a naked body, I was as much interested in what shadows could hide and make mysterious as to what was in the light.

I know many photographers have very exact ideas of what they want as a product when shooting nudes. Not so much me. I often will take an idea from a painting or another artist to start. But from there I will bend the light and form into different patterns. A lot of what I shoot doesn’t always work. But as they say, Babe Ruth swung out more than anyone else. And that is likely why he got more home runs than anyone.

Working with Models

The most important thing I have found working with models is being respectful. Make sure they are comfortable with whatever you are asking them to do. Tell them what you are doing and why, with lights etc. Even if it is ‘Let’s try this…”.

Reassure and validate your model. Be calm. Be as confident as you can. Serve your model tea, water or wine. (But only a little of the last.) Have a cloak for them to wear and place for them to change.

And try and make it fun.