Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I would love to do a period movie. I’ve always wanted to wear the corset, you know. It’s a girl thing!—Kat Dennings
If you’re interested in glamour photography you might want to follow Dita Von Teese (@ditavonteese) on Instagram because of the inspiration her images provide. Every Monday one of her IG fan sites publishes portraits of her wearing corsets, which is why I created #corsetmonday that is slowly coming to an end. (See note at the bottom of this post.).
For a long time, I’ve tried to make a portrait of every model wearing a corset that I photographed including the lighting equipment reviews I wrote for the former print edition of Shutterbug. That magazine typically wouldn’t publish any of these photographs but these portraits of Sara were printed in a couple of articles that I wrote for Professional Photographer. If it turns out that this post gets a lot of views and likes on Instagram, (please follow me @joefarace) I try to fit images of Sara wearing a purple corset into a future #corsetmonday
Some of the models appearing in this series have either never appeared or may be under represented on this blog for several reasons, including how many shoots I did with them. Others, like Sara I only got to photograph once but I wished I could have photographed her again but didn’t have the opportunity. I hope that I will get to photograph Sara again at some time in the future,
How I made this shot: As far as posing is concerned, I seldom ask or tell the model how to move preferring to let her be herself and don’t employ “official” poses that the model wouldn’t normally find. That why also why I almost never use a tripod during glamour sessions because for me a handheld camera provides the freedom to move around and lets me put myself into whatever position is necessary to get the picture. But not everybody agrees with that approach. When Mary shoots portraits she likes using a tripod so she can look over the camera at the subject so they can see her face instead of a hunk of glass, which can be a big help when photographing people who might be uncomfortable with the portrait experience
This portrait of the Sara was made in the makeshift studio located in the basement of my former home. Her makeup was by Diana Lareé from Greeley, Colorado. When doing a series of headshots for Professional Photographer (and Sara’s portfolio,) I got close for the headshots but also made some looser cropped images as seen above right.
Lighting was from a pair of the original “paint can” Paul C Buff White Lighting monolights. These classic designs have long since been replaced by the more modern and capable White Lighting X-series of monolights. The camera used was a Canon EOS 5D Mark I. To give the portrait an old Hollywood look, I used an EF135mm f/2.8 SF lens with Soft focus lens set at “zero” aka no soft focus .The manual mode exposure for this particular sequence of images, according to the EXIF data, was 1/50 sec at f/9 and ISO 200.
Special Note: I would like to keep this #corsetmonday series alive through 2023. I’m looking for women interested in posing wearing corsets for photographs to be used on this series. No experience is necessary. After signing a simple model release, the model will receive a choice of a CD or flash drive containing all the approx 200 photographs we’ll make during a session to take home the day of the shoot. The model will also receive full rights to use the images however they like. If you’re interested, click CONTACT and let’s talk.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat me to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($3.50), please click here. And if you do, thanks so much.
If I’m not mistaken, Sara appears in my book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography that is full of tips, tools and techniques for glamour and boudoir photography and includes information on all of the cameras used as well as the complete exposure data for each image. New books are available from Amazon for $33.90 but the price fluctuates, so it might be less when you click the link. Used copies start around twenty-three bucks as I write this. Kindle version is $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.