Today is the penultimate post in my #seethrough series. It is ending somewhat prematurely for reasons that are spelled out in Saturday’s post, “What My Studio Photography Future Holds.” You can read more there but there will be another post, I think, next week that explains my future portrait and glamour photography plans moving forward.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Where ever I am I always find myself looking out the window wishing I was somewhere else.— Angelina Jolie
Lingerie is a category of women’s clothing that includes undergarments, sleepwear and lightweight robes. The word implies the garments are alluring and fashionable. Lingerie can be made of lightweight, stretchy, smooth, sheer or decorative fabrics such as silk, satin, Lycra, charmeuse, chiffon, or lace.
See-through clothing describes any garment that’s made with lace, mesh or sheer fabric that allows the wearer’s body or undergarments to be seen through its fabric. See-through or sheer fabric, particularly in skin tone colors, is sometimes called illusion, as in ‘illusion bodice’ due to giving the impression of exposed flesh. This concept is not new. See-through fabrics were fashionable in Europe during the eighteenth century and the use of see-through fabrics as a common element in designer clothing resulted in the “sheer fashion trend” that’s been predominant in fashion circles since 2008.
Some models featured in this series have either never appeared on this blog or may be under represented depending on how many shoots that I did with them. I photographed Megan, I think, twice and once was during my film era. And If you want to give your portraits a “film look,” why not just shoot them with film?
How I Made this Shot: I had this session with Megan during a time when I was shooting DSLR—the Canon EOS D60, not 60D. Megan was a student pâtissier during the time that I photographed her. But she was also an aspiring model referred to me by a modeling agency that I worked with when the agency referred several models including Kim and Leslie.
Glamour portraiture, to me, is all about soft light and there’s nothing softer than window light. To supplement the available light, I’ll occasionally use speedlights for fill. In this case, there may have been a reflector placed at camera right but I don’t think so. I photographed Megan in the space between the living and dining rooms in my former home using the light from a window in the house’s back door. The camera used was a Contax 167MT with a Carl Zeiss 85mm f/2.8 lens. Exposure was on Kodak color negative film, exposure unrecorded.
Scans of the film were made using Kodak’s original Photo CD process and were opened using Lemke Software’s GraphicConverter that produces fairly good quality image files but the software is not without its quirks for those using older computers and OS. Any noise was mitigated using Dfine and the image was tweaked in Vivenza to slightly punch up the colors.
Special Note: The #seethrough series is coming to an end with just one more scheduled post in this series. This is part of a change in direction for this blog. There is a possibility the the future referred to in last Saturday’s post might and but it all depends on the availability of models that will allow me to continue to make images—and blog posts—about glamour and studio photography. If you’re a woman who is interested in posing for thee kind of photographs, please click CONTACT and let’s talk
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to buy Joe a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here.
If you’re interested in learning how I shoot available light glamour portraits, please pick up a copy of Available Light Glamour Photography which is available new from Amazon.com for $22.53 or used starting at $18.98 as I write this. The Kindle version is $21.40 for those preferring a digital format.