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‹ Photo Notes · 15 června, 2015
Don’t worry, despite the poetic title today’s article is strictly factual and concerns nothing but photography. Photographing women, though I think that, according to taste and need, it can easily be applied to other photographic genres too.
The idea I want to share today fell out of me spontaneously at one of my recent workshops, and because it didn’t seem completely stupid to me, it would probably be a shame if only that small group of people heard it.
I compared photographing nudes, portraits (and anything similar) to landscape photography. At first glance that may look like nonsense, and I’ve also been through many discussions in which representatives of those fields couldn’t agree on which one is more demanding, but read on and maybe you’ll agree with me that there isn’t such a big difference between them after all.
What does landscape photography mean to a layperson? I’m walking or driving through the landscape, I say to myself, „it’s pretty here,“ in front of me a field, a meadow, a lonely tree, a rock, a pond, a road, a forest, little hills and so on. I stop, take a photo and continue on my way. And a fantastic landscape photo is lying in the belly of my camera.
Of course, that can happen if you have talent, sensitivity, or at least luck to spare, but if you say that to an experienced landscape photographer, he’ll either get terribly angry or laugh at you. And he’ll explain that …
Off he goes, finds an interesting place, photographs it, but keeps walking around the area and checking whether he can find an even better angle. And that’s not all. He starts returning to the same place over and over and gradually gets to know his landscape. He perceives how it changes before his eyes over the course of the day and the year, when it’s beautiful, cheerful, when sad or uninteresting. And when it seems beautiful and interesting to him, he even prays for divine intervention so the right clouds, fog, sunbeams, rain or snow will come and his photo will finally be perfect.
Note: maybe I’m exaggerating, I don’t shoot landscapes myself, I’m going by what landscape photographers say, though it’s possible they were all liars just trying to discourage me from landscape photography.
And what does nude photography mean to a layperson?
You may laugh or shake your head in disbelief, like most participants of the aforementioned workshop, but my experience is that a lot of people take it something like this: 170 centimetres, 50 kilograms, bust size 2 – clear numbers at the input = a clear photo at the output. „Now stand in this kind of pose…„
That is a terrible mistake. To me, every model is absolutely unique. I know each has a different charisma, stands differently, moves her hand differently, looks differently, even lies down differently. I know that on one I’m fascinated by her legs, on another by her hands, and on another maybe by her neck and shoulders. I know which one suits this or that and which doesn’t, and I know I have to get to know her first in order to know all that. Sometimes I have three hours for it and sometimes ten years, but I’m still getting to know her, perceiving how she blossoms and wilts before me, and for my photos I selfishly steal only the best.
And even when I’ve known her for a long time, I still don’t know what she’ll be like when she comes next time. She may arrive in a worse or better mood (school, work, boyfriend, family can be to blame…), her self-confidence may have changed (she got older, gained weight, lost weight, someone said something to her, someone photographed her badly or brilliantly), her physical or health condition may have changed (she lost weight, gained weight, got tanned in a swimsuit or without, has a bruise, is premenstrual or her period has just started…) etc. All that and much more (including, among other things, that divine intervention or whatever it is) has a huge influence on the uniqueness of the result.
Everyone is different, and it’s essential to take it that way. There’s no point forcing someone who doesn’t suit posing to pose, forcing someone who doesn’t dance to dance, asking for athletic creations from someone who has no aptitude for them or doesn’t have an athletic body, or photographing a model with a musical instrument when she’s never held one in her hand. It shows in the photos and looks cringeworthy.
At another recent workshop I got a (technically intended) question about how to photograph a back nicely. I answered, „Find someone with a nice back.„
They say a photographer is only as good as their worst photo. See every model as an exceptional personality and look for the best; there’s no point photographing anything else. Give models your maximum attention, and you’ll automatically get the best as a reward.
A few days ago a model told me I’d rid her of many complexes by the way I portrayed her. I’d hardly have achieved that if I’d seen her only as 170/50/2.