The GetDPI Photography Forum
Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!
Classic nude
- Thread starter Charles S
- Start date
TomTom
New member
Nice shot Charles, I like the pose and am not missing the hand. Your model is classically proportioned and posed well. I do think you could be more daring with the lighting, say a 4' strip light at almost 90 degrees to draw attention to the form and to see what modeling the light can offer to her marvelous figure. I would also suggest over exposure a little especially on the face, the skin tone rendering seems kind of too perfect, or "expected". did you bracket? did you move the veggies around trying different arrangements? OK and one more thing, her eyes seem to be suggesting tiredness, they are closed enough to be ambiguous as to her engagement in the process. I do not intend to be mean or harsh here. Did you try one with her eyes closed? Sometimes I do that in a shoot just to keep the model involved even if it does not look great at first. my two cents. ~TEU
faberryman
Member
The random fruit and vegetables seem placed there for no particular reason, are distracting, and mar an otherwise excellent image.
I feel the same but didn't want to say it. IMO, what's missing is some sort of relationship between the nude and the vegetables & fruit.
Charles, by any chance, would you have a photograph of the nude without any vegetables & fruit?
The vegetables & fruit themselves might make a very nice still life photograph.
MN
P.S. Yes, I know that squash is technically a fruit.
Last edited:
First of all, I appreciate your feedback. It's good food for thought, so please don't hold back.
The post here was actually to show the fat pixel back rendering by request of the MF folks. Since it is a nude, I can't post it on the MF forum, so I posted here and posted the link on the MF forum
By popular request an image from the same set without the fruit, taken by a different camera, so it looks a bit different. The edits were also quick.
I think the image with the fruits works a lot better. The fruits were there to add some color, echo her shape, reference to forbidden fruit etc. Also compositionally it works better for me.
The point about the hand, maybe, I don't think it is that important. At the next shoot I'll arrange things differently and see if it looks better. Try and learn I suppose.
PeterA
Well-known member
Charles - your first image is a great composition - referencing a painterly form. Makes me want to ask you why? Which is an indication of a successful image. Using so called 'classic' form in a different context is a powerful device. Interested to see where you are going with this.
The second image isn't worth a second glance by comparison.
I would be careful listening to people who specialise in making snaps of pretty landscapes when it comes to your exploration of something different.
Pete
The second image isn't worth a second glance by comparison.
I would be careful listening to people who specialise in making snaps of pretty landscapes when it comes to your exploration of something different.
Pete
Dear Pete,
Thanks for the encouragement.
I am interested in other's opinions, and willing to be challenged. Sometimes it confirms my choices, sometimes it changes my perspective. In this case, of the set of images I shot, I maintain that the first one I posted was better. At the same time, next time I shoot, I will pay attention to the hands, and see if it improves the image.
And yes, it strikes me that the MF forum is very landscape heavy. I find MF particularly good for portraiture Because of the color transitions. I don't really care about Mpix.
On the painterly style bit: I am studying the renaissance painters like Caravaggio to understand more of their use of props and the symbolic meaning of them. So it will develop in this direction, with a twist and more intuitive than planned I suppose. i have been playing around with this for some time. I shoot with a Hasselblad, and in this case, I had an old V series Blad with a P1 back (no I am not rich, just had a great bargain) which has fat-pixels which give a more painterly look, which completes the look and feel.
Thanks for also posting the image of just the nude.
I agree with you in that the pose of the nude in the first image is visually stronger than the pose in the second image.
Although squash is biologically categorized as a fruit, it's culinarily and culturally regarded as a vegetable. IMO, squash adds cognitive dissonance to the image. Also the different varieties of squash and their larger size visually overwhelm the two apples.
I wonder how a basket of apples on the table and perhaps she holding an apple in her right hand would work.
MN
P.S. The original biblical texts never specify the "fruit" as being an apple; it’s merely states, "fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil". The interpretation that the fruit is an apple is a later interpretation which some say is due to the similarities between the word "evil" and the word "apple" in latin. It has been argued that there were no apples in the Middle East at that time and most likely the "fruit" would have been a pomegranate! (If one takes the word "fruit" literally as a biological fruit.)
I think, pomegranates would be also visually more interesting than apples. She holding a pomegranate!
Last edited:
faberryman
Member
The apple is the forbidden fruit, not the squash.
Depends where the Garden of Eden was located. If somewhere in the Near East couldn't be an apple picked from an apple tree.
Yes, I also agree with that.
faberryman
Member
Right, fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and all that. I was approaching the issue from traditions in western art history. If you want to go with squash, I can't stop you. Alternate takes have their place.Depends where the Garden of Eden was located. If somewhere in the Near East couldn't be an apple picked from an apple tree.
Last edited:
Book of Enoch describes the tree of knowledge as a "species of the Tamarind tree, bearing fruit which resembled grapes extremely fine" (1 Enoch 31:4).
As show in the Creation Museum, Petersburg, KY
Last edited:
PeterA
Well-known member
Well if you are studying the painters - you will have noted that your lighting is off - a marked difference between the tonality of the face and mid to lower body...
secondly
my 'take' on the photograph would be to ....
replace the model's head with the larger vegetable or melon and put her head on the table...
as one possible example of 'flipping' the original notion of the 'good chattal' into a modern 'take'.
Cheers
Pete
Interesting ideas. Let me play around with PS to see what that would look like.
On the lighting bit; she was lit with a 150cm parabolic with a reverse mounted head and feathered with a reflector opposite, so about as soft and even as you can get it.
i did dodge the upper part of her body / face a bit to draw attention to it.
NO
I think, the suggestion to replace the nude's head with a fruit was more meant as a joke!
PeterA
Well-known member
The PS work is total absolute crapola but you know that...yes ....like that except the head should be behind some fruit/veggies...
your dodge burn was total crapola and an insult to the composition and time yout took to make the shot and all that goes with it...
you can thank me when you actually do or get the compositing work done properly and make you first sale(s) ...
Cheers
pete