Tag: natural light

John Raphel – Chelle (2016)

I’ve been unofficial on Tumblr for like eight (8) years give or take. I’ve run this blog for 5+ years and I am honestly to the point where I spend about three times as long waiting for the next page of my dashboard to load than I do scrolling down each page. (The handful of images I like every day hardly even slow me down–it’s like toggle the heart and keep scrolling.)

But I stopped dead when this slid into view.

I read it left to right; eyes scanning until they reach her face and then in a reverse crescent downward–mirroring the curve of the center line of Chelle’s body.

The bit of her her right leg you can see in the lower left-hand corner is like a dead end that then returns your eye back up the same trajectory it descended.

On the return trip: you notice the black scarf around her neck and how her skin is a bit shiny–as if it’s warm and she’s just starting to sweat. (Also note: the color in her face compared to the pale of her skin. This is further emphasized by the scarf as dark dividing line.)

It’s a fine line but one could argue (and I would be such a one to argue) that her  sternum, clavicles and shoulders are all edging towards overexposure.

Objectively great skin tone is probably somewhere halfway between her upper body and face. Yet, what I like about this is that with the shallow depth of field (which one notices as one follows the reverse trajectory of the the initial scanning arc), the contrast between her flesh and the background points even more attention towards the handling of color.

But although I wouldn’t call this good skin tone–it’s actually better than great because it shows me something in a way I’ve never seen it before. And the overall effect here is that light and color are being employed by a photographer to accomplish something more sculptural than photographic. (If you’ve ever spent any time digging through images of Michelangelo or Bernini, you’ll understand what I mean.)

There’s one other sort of meta thing I walked away from this image finally grasping. I’m always flummoxed that anyone bothers with this blog. I mean it’s very much a solipsistic reflection of my ego trying to referee the all-out, 24/7 melee between my id and superego.

But it occurs to me that the reason that people might respond to it is because underneath all that this is very much a personal act of resistance against unmindful consumption. (Frequently writing these posts is like pulling teeth–because my natural inclination is to take in and take in and take in, without every really stopping to dwell on what I’m taking in and how I feel about it. What it’s trying to show me and what it’s trying to show me are telling me.)

Perhaps, I’m giving myself too much credit. But I do think it’s important to resist unchecked, uncritical and unmindful consumption. If this blog manages that for even a handful of you, then it’s an unqualified success in my eyes.

Donatas Zazirskas – Untitled (2016)

It occurs to me that one of the things which hinders the teaching/creation of art is placing too much of an emphasis on originality.

I am honestly not sure where I personally fall on the whole spectrum of innovation is still possible vs it’s all already been done; however, I do know that focusing on whether or not something is original is just about the quickest death that the momentum of doing can die.

Consider Zazirskas–who favors either highly, manicured, even lighting design which restricts most of the tonal range in his scenes to Zones IV through X (a la this, also this) or a darker, moodier chiaroscuro where there’s very bright light, truncated mid-tones and very dark portions of the frame (as above).

Unfortunately, his work rarely fires on all cylinders. (And I do not mean for that to be a dismissal; I think he just needs to keep working, pick one tendencies and explore it instead of trying to embrace and enact three very different approaches to scene setting.

I don’t think this is an especially original picture. It trades in the same fierce backlighting that folks like Paul Barbera have expanded into a wistfully sensual, visual nostalgia kick-to-the-head. There’s also similarities to Hannes Caspar and STOTYM–less stylistic more in tone and content, respectively.

Point is: what interests me about this is the equivocation in Zazirskas’ handling of poses and gesture. His most technically astute image (here) is too tied to a rigidity of conceptualization, i.e. the subject’s reflect vs her poses that the rest of the image–no matter how interesting the setting, details or color (I mean god that eggshell blue is to die for)–the frame hanges loosely around the insistence on a pose that doesn’t work.

Yet, with the image above all the elements–the composition, the lighting, the floor, chair and board behind the chair with faces cut from magazines and glued to it presumably, all gathers to suggest a fluid unity of concept and execution.

Back to my point about originality, though: all the photographers/image makers I’ve linked with Zazirskas are all folks whose work I think is more prescient and refined. The thing that distinguishes Zazirskas, however, is the fact that he is very much not doing fly-on-the-wall work like the others.

The angle of the model’s left leg in this is actually both demurely shielding while also being a provocation–exercising agency over what is seen and what remains discreet while complimenting the lighting (the darker portions of the outside of her left leg contrasting with the hot spots on the outside of her right thigh).

For as much as I like the other work, I feel like this is at least more honest with itself about what it’s essential nature is. That’s rather something, actually.

Source unknown – Title Unknown (20XX)

With the ubiquity of un-sexy Hollywood sex scenes, why can’t someone figure out how to make a film with a layered, nuanced, well-developed female protagonist with a relate-able, accessible and engaging story and put the above scene in it.

Excepting regressive and prudish attitudes towards female sexuality, there’s no reason this scene couldn’t be part of an awesome indie feature. Yeah, maybe she wouldn’t be completely naked but notice how in the throes of ecstasy even though her pose is cheated toward the viewer for maximum visibility, this scene–based on the what 60-something frames in this gif–is about her pleasure.

Source: girls-who-love-masturbation