Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Joaquin Alberto Vargas y Chávez (February 9, 1896 – December 30, 1982) was a noted Peruvian painter of pin-up girls. He is often considered one of the most famous pin-up artists and his paintings continue to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Playboy magazine started using use Vargas’ work in 1959 and over the next 16 years he produced 152 paintings for the magazine. It’s where I first became aware and admired his work.
If you’ve ever wondered what goes on before, during and after one of my glamour model photo sessions, I think today’s post provides some of details of what it was like for this particular shoot. People often ask me “how did you make that shot?” So today I’ll tell you about how I made this intimate portrait of the statuesque Zoe.
I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating that finding glamour models is as easy or difficult as you want to make it. If you work at it methodically and consistently, you will discover that some really talented models will find you.
Unlike some other models that I’ve photographed, I didn’t discover Zoe; she found me. She found me through my website’s Model page while searching for photographers who specialized in glamour photography. I was the second photographer that she called; she didn’t like the first guy’s attitude. Zoe was looking to update not just her own portfolio but some of her friends were interested too, so this one contact ended up introducing me to two other models.
How I made this shot: The above portrait was made in the loft area just outside the door to my office in my former home. It was shot mostly with available light—there’s a big window to the left of where Zoe is sitting—mainly because at the time I did not have a dedicated in-home studio and didn’t even own a set of inexpensive studio lights. All that changed, at least somewhat, later on…
I photographed Zoe with a Canon EOS 50D and EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM lens (at 28mm.) The lens has been discontinued by the manufacturer but you can pick up used copies from many sources, including Amazon. A 550EX speedlite with Sto-Fen Omni Bounce diffuser was used as fill although the captured image could have used a little more. Exposure was 1/13 sec at f/5.6 and ISO 400. The final touch was adding a bit of softness from the Glamour Glow filter from Color Efex.And Zoe has all the physical characteristics of a classic Vargas model.
I originally envisioned this as a blue-tinted monochrome image to give it a moonlit look but as I’ve mentioned before, I am moving away from using monochrome for some of my intimate portraiture. That was my approach when originally posting sexy glamour portraits because I was afraid of Internet censors and nanny software. In recent months, I have stopped being afraid and have been posting images that were a little more honest and so this post was updated a different image from the original shoot.
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You can learn all of my tips, tools and techniques for shooting available light glamour photography in my book Available Light Glamour Photography. New copies of the book are available from Amazon for $29.95 with used copies starting around twenty bucks as I write this. The Kindle version is $28.45 for readers preferring a digital format.