Infinity

I thought I put this to bed ages ago. As you will have seen for a long time, I have been trying to take Photo’s with a black background. This is a pain as I cannot take pictures at home during the day, I paint mostly during the night, taking photo’s eats into painting time. I don’t have a dark room in which to do this and do not have black out blinds.

I got a fair comment on social media which was that my pictures were under exposed. After reviewing the said pictures, some of them are under exposed in relation to the model. this was caused by my hunt to get a black background. I started taking photo’s for the background and not the model. Funny because that should never be the aim of taking a photo.

I had no plans to paint models for a few days so I decided to take a deeper look into this and reflect about the photo’s of my models.

I took 3 photos with 3 backgrounds of one model. One white, one black and one in situ I tried to compare them to what I though. I correctly exposed them for the model and not the background. I also then asked for feedback to see what one people preferred and why.

The feedback I got was slightly mixed but almost everyone disliked the white background. Someone suggested more depth of field and they preferred the in situ, which I agree with to a point. I done this and kind of like the result. The good news is I can take this kind of Photo at any time of the day. The other feedback I received was the background helps drive the narrative of the model. While I agree with this, I can’t agree on this model as it came with a Buddha base. I can only imagine a comic book entrance of a champion falling from the sky on a Buddha only to have it smash when it lands and the hero ends up on top of the Buddha drop canister, now broken.

I took another photo taking this feedback into consideration

The downside of more depth of field is it’s harder to get the full model in focus, especially when you have dynamic models like this. It’s not a deal breaker though.

I found myself wondering. What is the point of taking the pictures of the models? This was not a woe moment but one of self-reflection. I paint because I enjoy it and want to get better. The Photo’s I take are to record it so I can look back and remember what was done and how far I have come since taking the photo. But that is not all. I also want the photos to drag me back in time, not only to the painting but to the playing. As I do not often photograph tables with my models on it, I miss this though I am usually too busy playing. I guess the models should be photographed around the things I would see on the table as this does invoke more of that feeling for me. The photo with scenery around it worked for me but I still want the focus to be on the model.

After some self reflection on this image. I liked it but the background clashed a little. One more picture, this time actually choosing the colour in the background instead of “that will do”

I think this will be the style of image I will be taking moving forward. This means I may need to make a couple of things to help this along, which is another project (just an extension of this one).

As far as all of this goes, I do think this is 100% personal taste I don’t think anyone should dictate to you how to photograph your models if your happy with them. As hopefully you have seen above I was not very happy with the results I got after looking at them with a more critical eye. I think I just needed to reassess why I am taking the pictures. I also think I need to reduce the number of pictures. One back and front should do at the most flattering angle.

More to come but with hopefully, pictures I am happier with. If you want to leave your opinion, please feel free I am still open to suggestion. This for me is very subjective apart from the under exposed models and some of my dodgy focusing at 2am.