So you want to be a fine art model!

Ever thought you'd like to be a nude fine art model? If you have you should check out The Women of Avalon blog. This group of ladies explore their minds as well as their bodies in various collaborations with fine art photographers. They manage to turn the act of modeling into an art form of its own.

Any form of fine art photography involving people is always difficult. For a photographer looking for models, the difficulty is finding a model who really "gets it" and has an understanding of what the final goal is. A fine art photographer who shoots people, is nothing without a model, who not only understands the concepts being portrayed, but understands the process of getting the image. The old term "Making haste slowly" springs to mind. Working towards a final image is often time consuming and for the model physically demanding. Stretching, forming shapes and holding poses for extended periods in often uncomfortable surroundings, isn't everyones cup of tea.

For a model wanting to get into fine art modeling, I can only imagine how difficult it must be to find a photographer, who is not only technically proficient but who also has a similar mindset to the model. There are hundreds of photographers claiming to be fine art nude photographers, but only a small handful who are producing anything above cheap mindless smut.

The beautiful Cherie Q

Shot with a Canon 1Ds II with a 100-400 f4.5-5.6 IS USM lens, natural light with a touch of white reflector on the left hand side of frame.

So its a cold dreary morning here, can you think of a better excuse to post and image of a beautiful young model wearing a bikini. Gotta tell you, even if you can, I'm posting it any way. The shot was created on the banks of the Murray River near Mildura a couple of weeks ago. You see Cherie Q, a good Aussie health and fitness model decide she needed a couple of bathers shots for her portfolio, and the lucky old outback photographer was given the job of shooting them.

Cherie Q, tiny little bundle of dynamite that she is, has launched a new website portfolio page, which you can view here. Cherie Q, is currently on the Australian Gold Coast modeling bikini's on the beach. Lucky sod... while the rest of us freeze.... but then again if its cold there, well maybe that wouldn't be such a good job.

Have a great day....

Hanging out with Cherie Q

Canon 1Ds II with 4.5-5.6 USM IS lens @100, one Elinchrome strobe through white umberella

During the past week the team at Excitations have had the pleasure of hanging out with Cherie Q, a young and dare we suggest energetic fitness and health model. We were shooting some new images for Cherie's portfolio. It is always fun to shoot with a model who is so full of life and determination.

The shot above was created in a Gymnasium while Cherie waited for the outback photographer to get his act together and throw some light onto the set. Lets see no how that works.
Set ready + model ready + stylist ready + oh surprise photographer isn't ready = one really cool shot of model waiting.

That's it for today, gotta go as I have way to much work to do and far to little time in which to do it. Don't suppose anyone wants to wash the
troopy for me... thought not.

Will be heading to the "Big Smoke" tomorrow and a few shoots there, so take care guys!

A little fun

Canon 1ds II, 16-35mm f2.8 @30mm, 580EX flash on camera.

After shooting some images for the very beautiful Ashley recently, she kindly allowed me to have a play with a couple of ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while. I know this isn't everyones cup of tea, in fact, I've never really been keen on portraits with wide angle lenses myself. Which really is the reason for me playing with this idea in the first place. I like to try things that are not inside my comfort zone and try and make them work. Sometimes they do and sometimes.... well you know!

I'll be trying some more when I get an opportunity so be warned. For those of you who care the image was processed in Photoshop using a custom Action that I created a fair while ago. Basically it converts to b/w using channel mixing, then adds blue and cyan in colour adjustment mode, then plays another custom softness action which I created way back in CS2 before finally adding a contrast adjustment layer. When the action finishes playing I'm left with a multi layered file that because the layers haven't been merged can still be tweaked to taste.
Gotta love Photoshop for this, about two hours work initially reduced to a single keystroke in nearly real time... cool!

Happy Birthday Stephanie...

Canon 1Ds II, 70-200mm f2.8 L lens

A good friend of the team at Excitations is celebrating her birthday today, we couldn't miss this opportunity to wish her all the best for the day. Of course it gives the Outback Photographer a chance to post a picture of a pretty girl as well... That can't be a bad thing.... right.


The above shot was captured recently when Stephanie visited the studio as one of the models for a promotional shoot for a fashion house. Shot on the steps of our Barn Style Studio, using entirely natural lighting.

Any way happy birthday Stephanie, hope your day goes really well.