Color of tapestry

This is an image took on Kachama art tapestry whose collection of works I shot for years, as well as for her collector's book.  This one is recent work, shot with Phase One P65+ on Hasselblad H2 camera, with HC Macro 120/4.  The original artwork is often in the size of 1-1.2 meter wide, and from 2-3 all the way to more than 20 meters long, usually collected by gallery, airport, hotel and some private collectors.  Each tapestry can take weeks to months to complete, and Kachama herself works her life into her unique vision of weaving.  It is really a pity the limitation of computer screen capable resolve such beautiful work in blogspot.

Point of view

An image took by using Canon 1Ds III with EF Macro 100/2.8L IS, on this beautiful model, Katya.  Our eyes rean an image with all the information communicated to our mind, some consciously, some sub-consciously.  Our mind put us in the reality of the environment where an image was taken, we felt the angle, distance, brightness, softness.....

Crystalize

A recent work shot for USTAR, on a beautiful Brazilian Japanese model, Priscilla, with Canon 1Ds III + EF Macro 100/2.8L IS.  The new Canon macro lens has recently became my most used lens, for still and motion, in the studio the IS is not really mattered, but as the last version, the 100mm focal lengn is my choice for shots such as this.
The shot is focus to portrait the beautiful skin of the model, which is indeed nice.  The skin is one of the most intimate element of the woman, one of the sexist visual attraction of a woman to man.  No wonder woman around the world spends so much on cosmetics.  And of couse I can't complain, it is part of my job and certainly I am enjoying it.

Work with camera

Adobe's Photoshop is today almost the synonym of digital photography, in some way it is quite true, but at the same time, hugely misunderstood.  Our eyes can resolve a lot more detail and light than the camera capable of, this can be a heated debate but not the subject here.
The use of Photoshop in professional has a lot of reasons that non-professionals don't understand. One of it, is the confidence of a model in fornt of a camera.  Yet, confidence is not something Photoshop can fix. A professional model spends hours before camera and mirror everyday, she will know how she looked best, and otherwise. But a photographer may agree and disagree with her, request her for poses she may not have the best look.  But this is not a comprise of the two, it is cooperation between the two.
Shot with Canon 1Ds III with EF 85/1.2L.

Window

Quite an interesting subject to me, and one I often took as a subject.  WIndow, for those inside the window, it is source of light, sort of hope, and it gives a sense of security. WIndow, for those outside, it says something about who owns the window, and who live behind it. It is a gate to both of the world.
This one, took in a small village nearby Xiapu, Fujian, China.  It attracted me with the beautiful color, the morning sun shine on the aged old wood frame, and a dried leaf, it was such a clam and peaceful morning.

First Light

First light of the day has lots of meaning especially to human beings. It ends the darkness, it brings safe, the beautiful warm color pushes the cooler, blue color away.  This image, took at Xiapu, Fujian, China, represent the color graduation of light from the rising sun bathing the shallow beach.  So beautiful to see how a day begins such way.  Shot with Phase One P65+ on Hasselblad H2, mounted with HC 100/2.2.

Frame Work

Shooting a full body swimwear is not as easy as one might think, of course it is certainly fun, well, most of the time.  A recent shot in Studio SOTA 96, using the ultra versatile Canon 5D II, with EF 24-105/4L IS, the lighting set up was 4 continuous quartz day-light lamps, 1 mounted on a large parabolic reflector, while another parabolic reflector fitted with 2 heads, and one for filling up background. Although the final image display a little sultry, sepai tone, in fact the original capture exhibits very nice and natural white balance.
Shooting continuous light is not new today, especially with camera having low noise level at medium ISO setting. But still the model needs experience working with such setting.  The usual tempo is no longer there, the model no longer counting on the rythm of studio flash, and in a slightly noisy studio environment, the camera clicks will be easily missed.  Photographer in this situation needs to work with model more closely so she can pose in a harmonized way along with clicks from the camera. May be it will be nice to have a beeping device once each shutter is pressed?
Anyway, coming to the subject, the frame work.  A model, no matter how perfect she is, the right body language and composition of each part of body is a lot more important than how perfect she is, for the benefit of nice final image.  Model is a profession that they need to pose to the camera as it is a mirror, although they don't necessary need to look at such mirror, but they need to see themselves in front of a camera. And a photographer is a profession that you don't see just an object, you see a picture.