Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Don’t save your good lingerie for dates, wear it for you.”― Dita Von Teese
Once upon a time I tried to include a portrait of every model that I photographed wearing a corset for every shoot I had, including lighting equipment reviews that I wrote for the former print edition of Shutterbug. You may, or maybe not, be surprised to learn that the editor, managing editor and art director never published a single one of these photographs in the magazine. Since they, for their own reasons, wouldn’t let you see the images, I’m going to try to publish them starting today and for the next several months.
Some of the models that will be featured in this series have either never appeared here before or may be under represented on this blog for several reasons, including the number of shoots that I did with them. Others models, such as Kellie Alexander who’s featured today, may be more familiar. You may remember Kellie, the sweet young model who set so many magazine publishers’ hair on fire because she was so…who knows what? If you missed my post of that subject, you can read or re-read the saga of Kellie’s controversial (to some) portrait and see the photograph in question here.
How I Made this Portrait: I made this portrait of Kellie wearing a corset during the last setup of a shoot that she had with both Mary and I. The shoot started late in the afternoon and I also made some environmental portraits of Kellie wearing a wedding dress. These latter images are ones that Shutterbug chose to publish in the magazine but they didn’t publish anything of her wearing this corset.
Lighting for this portrait could not be simpler: Kellie was posed with her back to a tall, narrow South-facing window in the living room of my former home. The photograph was made using only existing light; no reflector or fill flash was used. The camera was a Canon EOS-1D Mark II N, one of my favorite DSLRs at that time. The lens used was also a favorite: The EF 135mm f/2.8 SF lens with its soft focus setting at zero. I think it’s the replacement to my original lens that you can read about here. The exposure was 1/125 sec at f/2.8 and ISO 200.
Join us next Monday for another adventure in Corset Land.
If you’re interested in learning how I shoot available light glamour and boudoir portraits, please pick up a copy of Available Light Glamour Photography which is available new from Amazon.com for $29.95 or used starting around twenty-one bucks, as I write this. The Kindle version is $28.45 for those preferring a digital format.