Some Random Thoughts from Joe Farace
I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer. –Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (1864-1949) was a German composer and conductor who was known for his tone poems and operas and was a leading figure of the late Romantic and early Modern era. Judging from the above quotation, he was also an astute observer of human nature and especially his own place in the history of music.
For some reason that Strauss quote seems to ring in my head as I wrote today’s post but first, two stories:
Story #1:
A few years ago, I conducted a private workshop with a gentleman who wanted to learn how I photographed glamour models. As part of the workshop, I was lucky enough to be able to obtain the talents of the extraordinary Dawn Clifford to pose for us and we shot in several locations, including her daylight-filled living room where the featured image was made.
Both the student and I were shooting with the same model Canon EOS DSLR, the identical lens and even used the same speedlights! In the featured image I made during the workshop, another one of those flashes were placed below her scarf to add some detail and was wirelessly tripped using Canon’s ST-E2 controller mounted on the camera’s hot shoe. Yet none of our images looked the same; Even though we were standing in almost the same spot, all our images were radically different from one another. For example. I shot the featured photograph with the EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 lens at 90mm, while most of his photographs were made using the 28mm focal length. While none of his images looked similar to those I made, he was happy with the experience and that was all that mattered.
How I Made this Photograph: I made this image of Dawn Clifford in the living room of her home with a Canon EOS D60 and Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 lens at 90mm. The exposure was 1/100 sec at f/5.0 and ISO 400 with a plus one-third stop exposure compensation. The image was still slightly underexposed, something that plagued my photography with these early Canon DSLRs. ( think it was a me problem.) I corrected it with a technique explained in this post. After cropping into a 4:3 ratio, the image was tweaked with Dfine to minimize noise and further enhanced with the Pro Contrast and Glamour Glow filters from Color Efex.
Story #2
I haven’t judged any photo contests in some time for lots of reasons but mostly because I don’t have the time these days. There was a time when I did and I once judged a statewide camera club contest and was surprised how different people see the world.
After being asked for several years to judge another club’s annual contest–I was often out-of-town when they held them–I finally was able to do it. Things turned out differently than they or I expected. I assumed they wanted me to say what I liked and didn’t like about about the images being judged but that turned out not to be the case. Many of the photographs were, I thought, quite good but others weren’t. So while I praised the ones whose excellence stood out, I gave my honest opinion about those that weren’t all that impressive. The other judges, pn the other hand, praised and gave every image a high score. Did the organization and its members appreciate my honesty? Well, they never invited me back. All these years later, I’ve decided that maybe my approach wasn’t a good idea.
What Have We Learned today?
In my post Eight Easy Ways for Improving Your Photography, I suggested that you read a book. Even the most basic how-to photo book or coffee table book that’s filled with photographs can inspire you to make better photographs. That said, you don’t have to copy another photographer’s work or style but I think it’s OK to start that way if you want. My suggestion would be to use those homages, and you know I love homages, as a jumping off point to evolve your own style. It boils down to the basic philosophy of this blog: Having fun with your photography!
In addition to this image, this session with Laura May Bachmayer included other images that members of our Patreon got to see. You can read about membership benefits in this post.
My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography 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 exposure data for each image. Used books are available from Amazon for $32.83, as I write this. The Kindle version is $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.