Photography Tips For Your Cell Phone Camera

In my last micro-epistle I attempted to pique your interest in that mini modern marvel called the cell phone because of its additional abilities as a bona fide instrument for recording still images. This article will show you the development (pun intended) of my portrait that you see on my masthead.

As a professional photographer I like to practice what I preach in updating my personal portraits. Face it. You look different from your last portrait which was probably taken (let me guess) at your college graduation.

No? It went back even farther to your high school graduation, right? Nice hair! Did you pick out that paisley shirt all by yourself or was it a graduation gift? I see you blushing! All right let’s get back to how my portrait got updated for this electronic column.

I needed something to demonstrate the cell phone camera’s abilities so I started by searching the camera settings on my trusty LG Chocolate. Looking through the options I moved from “normal” and selected “sepia”.

Next I set the metering on “average” and the resolution at maximum which is 1280x960 and the white balance (Read color temperature.) on “auto” which allows the camera to decide on what’s white and what’s not.

Nobody was home except my resident cat Tigre, and she was busy sleeping on the sofa so I couldn’t ask her to take my picture. That left my right hand as the only volunteer since there is no tripod mounting options on the LG.

All right Tony, hold the camera at arm’s length, guess where it’s pointed and push the button for the first exposure. Nice photo of the top of my head and the west corner of my room! There was also considerable camera shake, so I turned on the camera’s self timer and set it for five seconds. Try, try again.

I experimented with different “arm lengths” and got my face to fill the screen, but that made my nose look way too big! Full “arm length” was best so I continued guessing as to where I should point the lens until I finally came up with the right combination of “you look somewhat intelligent” and “you’re included in the frame.” (See photo #1 above.)

This photo is what I settled on because I could see the potential in it. No, it’s not a great photo, but it is a reasonable facsimile so I imported it into the other indispensable tool in my digital world called “iPhoto”.

Let me digress for a paragraph:
It took a long time for me to give up my trusty 6x6 centimeter film cameras, but Dr. Wayne Dyer told me in one of his books, “Once you stretch a balloon to a new dimension, it can never go back to its original shape.” I’ve been digitally stretched; thank you, Dr. Dyer.

I opened Photoshop on my Big Mac, as I call my trusty Apple G4, recently upgraded computer. The first thing I noticed about my photo was the sepia tone. It’s not a true sepia tone and looks way too orange for my taste so I turned it into a plain black and white.

That’s better, but there are distractions in the upper left and right corners and there’s too much of me for the space alloted on my Examiner masthead. No problem, just use the crop tool but before I pressed the “OK” button, I rotated my image to a more masculine pose.

(More to come on masculine and feminine poses so be sure to come back!) Next came some tweaking of the highlights and shadows, and finally, brightness and contrast. The only remaining task was to size my portrait for the web. Done. (See image #2 above.)

Ready? Set? Post! "Here’s looking at you, kid.”

Taken From Examiner.com

Sexy Photography Boosting Business

FORT MYERS: Women in Southwest Florida are getting their girlfriends, lining up, stepping behind the Red Door and taking it all off for eye-popping sexy photos. Those pictures are now catching on and boosting business.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth 1,000 words. But sometimes, a little less can say a lot more.

Michelle Weaver is the owner of Picture This - a photography studio on McGregor Boulevard in Fort Myers. Last year, just before Valentine's Day, the studio held a first of its kind gathering for married women called the Red Door.

"It's sexy hot momma boudoir parties," said photographer Marie Kamp.

"Everyone is clad in a robe first, then it all changes. Women run around here, you know, in their birthday suits," added Weaver.

Kamp says it was during that Red Door gathering that she began taking the artistic pictures for the very first time.

"It caught on like wildfire. It has not slowed down at all. It's very popular," she said.

In fact, Weaver said the photos now make up 70-percent of the studio's revenue.

In a time when many downtown businesses are struggling to stay open, Picture This is hanging on thanks to a concept where the clothes come off when the camera turns on.

"This has been like CPR for our studio. It's really been the heartbeat," said Weaver.

It's a body of work that's proving to be a fine work of art.

"There's a fine line between sexy hot momma and smutty pictures. What we do is tasteful and appropriate. We do market to married women," said Weaver.

Click here to read more about Picture This and the Red Door.

Taken From MSNBC.com

The Female Gaze

WOMEN X WOMEN brings into focus the intimate relationship between female fashion photographers and their models

BY Meghan Dean

WOMEN X WOMEN is open to the public at The Fashion House, 560 King W, on Friday, March 20, noon-6pm, and Saturday, March 21, noon-5pm, as part of LG Fashion Week. Admission is free. Visit www.womenxwomen.com for details.

Angela Young thinks big. When a photographer friend told Young she wanted to do a small exhibit featuring women on both sides of the lens, Young had a glitzier idea.

“I thought it could be bigger, more glam. And then I thought, ‘Well, what’s bigger and more glam than Fashion Week?’” says Young, a Toronto-based communications manager for Vespa. “So we met with the FDCC [Fashion Design Council of Canada] and said ‘How can we make this happen?’”

The result is WOMEN X WOMEN, an exhibit focusing on how the viewer sees a female model through a female photographer’s lens. “We often see the woman through a male’s gaze, and [she] gets sort of fetishized,” Young says. “But there’s this sense of trust, intimacy and honesty between two women. We wanted that to come through.”

Photographers — from the emerging to the acclaimed — were challenged to invoke their own memories as inspiration for the shoot. “Every artist has a past, an imprint that they place on their work,” Young says.

Each photographer will unveil a never-before-seen high-fashion editorial at the exhibit. (For a sample of what to expect, see Zoe Bridgman’s photo above.) Over 100 pieces will be on sale for $150-$350, depending on the photographer’s experience.

By uniting all these women within one project to celebrate their talent, Young ultimately hopes a strong, supportive network of female photographers will be created.

“These younger women get to associate with these established photographers, and get advice and make contacts. It’s like a mentoring thing. It’s win-win…. There are a lot of sharks in this industry: you have to fend for yourself so it’s important to build a community.”

Taken From EyeWeekly.com

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Photography
All about photography

An Early History of Glamour Photography

In the 18th and 19th centuries the classical arts were very much admired; sculptures and paintings showing the naked body were the major part of art gallery and museum exhibitions.

However the Victorians were strict on morality, and in the family home a portrait of the Queen, a framed religious tract or a landscape print would be the normal pictures to grace their sitting room. No nudes here!

Soon after the invention of the photographic process by Daguerre in the 1830's the first nude photographs were created. These early photographs were intended to provide good reference material for painters sculptors. Many of the early nude photographs were posed in the manner of classic oil paintings to make them more acceptable to critics of this art form.

The technical process in the early years required extremely long exposures, so the nude model often had to stay extremely still for up minutes while the shutter remained open. The pose of the model was often contrived. Theatrical settings were used - the chaise-longue covered in heavy brocade, floral drapes, large classical urns and other paraphernalia were used to set the scene.

The reality of the photographic image was considered quite ugly at this time, so the closer the photographer could make the photograph resemble a classical painting the less likely to be accused of creating something obscene.

The model who was willing to pose unclothed was considered immoral, and 'respectable' women rarely posed in the nude during the early days of photography.

The pin-up nude image, designed for titillation, made its appearance in the mid 1800's in the form of the daguerreotype photograph. Erotic postcards, many created in France, were extremely popular and were the beginning of the pornographic industry we know today.

The emergence of the glamorous pin-up photograph came about because not only was the female form revealed in all its splendour, but it also allowed the model a chance to put her own personality into the picture.

In this way the nude photograph caused a sexual response from the viewer as well as an appreciation of the artistry of the picture. Erotic postcards enjoyed considerable at the turn of the 20th century.

Although they were called postcards, they were not sent through the post as this was illegal. They could be obtained, by those in the know, from suppliers in every walk of life who were out to make money from a profitable trade.

The majority of the pin-up cards were mild by today's standards. They were created to show a pleasing image which entertain and stimulate the viewer. These images, which can still be seen today, have innocence about them. Although often saucy, they are not the blatant images seen in the top-shelf magazines around today.

In spite of the contrived coy poses of the models these vintage photographs have great charm. The use of a primitive lens, slow film and daylight studios created a luminous quality which any glamour photographers would be happy to achieve in their work today.

Taken From MsoKorea.com

Carroll Takes Formalist Approach To Photography

Asbury Park resident Dennis Carroll's photographs are not about emotion, but about the juxtaposition and intersection of space, lines and shapes. Their stark reality expresses, at the same time, a clear artistic beauty.

Expansive natural settings are a backdrop yet central to sharp depictions of the mathematical designs found in buildings or in natural elements.

"In my case, it's not so much to create an emotional expression. I'm more a formalist," Carroll, 67, says of his work. "It has to do with an intellectual approach, with balancing the components to create a resolution of photographic problems."

Twenty-plus photographs — scenes of Asbury Park, Seaside Heights, Vermont, Cape Cod and the Hudson Valley in New York — are on display in "Caught," an exhibit that opens Wednesday at The Paint Place Gallery in Asbury Park. The show's title refers to how the camera catches an image.

"I shoot as the spirit moves me. Sometimes I plan. I'll go visit a site, such as Hudson Valley, where friends live, and shoot all day," he adds. "Other times, I have my camera with me, and something will grab me. I hate to say it, but I don't always have my camera with me, and I miss a moment."

Painting, theater background

Although he has been a photographer since attending Montclair State University, where he received bachelor's and master's degrees in fine art, early on he focused on painting abstractions in acrylic.

Digital photography sped up his focus on photography, he says.

"One of the things I enjoy most about it is the problem-solving nature of playing with it on the computer. How do you enhance the photo to make it not only show but meet the image you have in your mind?"

Such enhancement doesn't rob work of its realism, he says.

"It's very much like representational painting. Most people think it's an accurate record of what the painter saw," he says. "In most cases, it's not. It's been altered because of what the artist has seen and wants to emphasize."

Carroll began photographing scenes in Asbury Park several years before moving to the city in 2003, a year after retiring as the Ridgewood school district supervisor of arts in Bergen County. At the high school, where he taught art and was director of the theater program, the art gallery was named for him upon his retirement.

"There was something about the wide open spaces of the beach here. I'm really interested in my paintings, too, in open space, empty space, and whether that can be divided by a horizon line or the edge of a building," he says.

Architecture draws his creative eye in the same way.

Carroll says he's so absorbed in shooting the architecture and landscapes of Asbury Park, he hasn't painted in several years.

Taken From APP.com

World Naked Bike Ride Celebrates The Beauty Of The Body Like SlipsAndCurves.us

Each year people all over the world gather together for the World Naked Bike Ride. The ride is a celebration of the beauty and freedom associated with the unclothed human body.

Much like the riders who gather for this liberating ride each year, the owner of SlipsAndCurves.us also believes in celebrating the beauty of the human body. The site features artistic photos of women in lingerie and is updated on a weekly basis.

Showing women in full slips, half slips, crinolines, petticoats, bras and panties, the site displays vintage focused photos for visitors to view.

View this new lingerie art at: http://slipsandcurves.us/ccbill/index.htm

At SlipsandCurves.us Glamour and Boudoir photography techniques are merged together to produce private images of women putting on and taking off lingerie. The innocence and sensual beauty of the photographs makes for engaging and beautiful artistic displays.

The site is not a typical "hot babe" site but is instead a classy view of lingerie photos online. The elegance in each photo is crystal clear.

Just as early artists drew the female body in stone carvings, hieroglyphics, drawings, sculptures, paintings, photographs and cinematography, SlipsandCurves.us works hard to depict the female body in artistic and respectful manners.

SlipsandCurves.us is a site featuring tasteful art in photograph form with models wearing present day and vintage lingerie. From traditional glamour pinup vintage lingerie to the petticoat soft underskirt, the photos are modern interpretations of classic clothing displays.

Just like the World Naked Bike Ride, this site is forward thinking when it comes to the human body's liberation movement.

By bringing glamour and beauty together, this new artsy website focuses not only on the female body. The site also focuses in on art lingerie photographs providing art lovers all over the world a new type of artistic expression.

We look forward to your comments, your ideas and your visits...

Please visit us at: http://www.SlipsandCurves.us

Taken From NewsBlaze.com

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Boudoir Photography: The Defining Difference

We suggest photographic skill & a creative imagination.

If photographers are honest, they know what kinds of pictures they plan to create. Obviously, photographic intent sets the tone for end results. Photographers who intend to create trashy pictures on pornography in fact create trash.

And for most of us, those pictures are not difficult to identify. We can differentiate between sensuous photography and trashy pictures without too much problem. They’re all skin and no art. Porn turns us off. It’s not pleasant to view.

On the other hand, a picture of a scantily clad model, implying nudity, with good pose and lighting can be a work of art. Tasteful and artistic images of a beautiful woman in various stages of boudoir attire reflect her poise and dignity. Although the style is revealing, many boudoir photos don’t actually show it all.

They suggest, but don’t cross the line between implying and revealing. When the photographer does choose a nude pose, he/she adjusts lighting and gives attention to composition detail to create a quality artistic photo. The result shows the sensitive nature of the work.

Boudoir photography suggests the setting of a bedroom or a woman’s sitting room. However, photos in this category need not be limited to a bedroom. Other rooms in a home or studio, or outdoor shots, lend themselves as compelling settings for quality sensuous.

No matter where sexy photos are taken, the foundation for quality is artistic tastefulness. Neither the photographer nor the model can lose sight of that requirement.

The relationship between photographer and model is always important, but even more so in boudoir photos. The photographer needs to be trustworthy, both in her/his work ethic as well as skill.

Professional photographers never betray that trust. They develop their reputation within ‘trust’ boundaries and consider that required by the profession. A good model will search out that quality before she agrees to the job.

She will research the reputation of photographers she considers working with and makes sure others have had good experiences with those on her list. It almost goes without saying that she is also self-confident. She is comfortable exposing her body to the camera’s eye.

A final word for all those who are not and will never be models… Most women love to see themselves in a soft and sensual portrait. Whether it’s at the hands of a professional photographer or one’s spouse or significant other, the emphasis capturing the beauty of her personal.

It no longer matters that she is ‘beautiful’ as socially defined. Photographing a woman in her natural state, with the emphasis on soft and sensual, good posing, carefully defined lighting and effective communication between picture-taker and model all results in incredible and tasteful artistic photos she will treasure forever.

Taken From MsoKorea

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