"I ONLY shoot...."

[JustJazzie]

bad 1980's style portraiture + photos of - Google Search

Which one is you Derrel? ;-)

 

[Designer]

.. so...we're stuck with somewhat inaccurate use of the term, and I see no way out.

This is how I deal with it:

 

[Designer]

In hashing out this Rachel Stephens character I think we can all agree that there are many things that we might disagree with her about her photography, and even she doesn't "always" do the same thing as she wrote in her book. There is a difference in approach whether one is making a living at photography or trying to sell books.

 

[pixmedic]

Come on guys....I'm supposed to be enjoying my 20 year class reunion right now, NOT moderating inappropriate comments.

Can you guys please play nice for a bit so I can enjoy the party? Pretty please?

 

[astroNikon]

I signed up for amazon kindle unlimited today

To get off topic here.
I've been considering this.
Does one download book or access them on the cloud?
If DLing, is there a limit to how many one can be reading simultaneously?

I just started my trial today, but I downloaded about 6 books off the bat and all showed up on my kindle immediately!

Do these expire after a certain time?
What happens when your subscription ends ?

 

[Josh66]

I have a Kindle, and read a lot on it - but what is Kindle "Unlimited"? That is a new one for me...

 

[e.rose]

Come on guys....I'm supposed to be enjoying my 20 year class reunion right now, NOT moderating inappropriate comments. Can you guys please play nice for a bit so I can enjoy the party? Pretty please?

You're lucky you cleared it out before I got back. I just got done with a shoot, and find myself bored again, so I was coming back to rumble.

Party on Wayne!

Sent from my iPhone using PhotoForum

 

[astroNikon]

The thing that I think most people miss is that this is how she makes her living, and she's doing it too.
Her styles, lack of consistency in what she tells people et all .. well you can't do much about that. If the clients like the results than that is what matters (I think we hashed that type of point in several recent threads).

It reminds me of musicians. I think all the jazz saxophonists that I know deplore Kenny G. (vs like David Sanborn or Boney James). But he makes a living at it and a pretty good one. You can't fault anyone for that.

 

[limr30 3]

Come on guys....I'm supposed to be enjoying my 20 year class reunion right now, NOT moderating inappropriate comments. Can you guys please play nice for a bit so I can enjoy the party? Pretty please?

You're lucky you cleared it out before I got back. I just got done with a shoot, and find myself bored again, so I was coming back to rumble.

Party on Wayne!

Sent from my iPhone using PhotoForum

Meh, I can tell you what happens at the 20th: some of the guys are bald, some of the cheerleaders got fat, the rest of them are just older, and one or two members of the stoner crowd became, like, a member of Congress or something equally unexpected. The rest of it is hours of, "So, are you married? Got kids? Where are you living? Oh, you like Cabo, too? Hey, whatever happened to [insert random person who didn't show up]. So, you're an accountant, huh? What's that like?" Then you order another beer and move onto the next person and have the same exact conversation for the next half hour.

We're more fun and you know you love us

 

[astroNikon]

Come on guys....I'm supposed to be enjoying my 20 year class reunion right now, NOT moderating inappropriate comments. Can you guys please play nice for a bit so I can enjoy the party? Pretty please?

You're lucky you cleared it out before I got back. I just got done with a shoot, and find myself bored again, so I was coming back to rumble.

Party on Wayne!

Sent from my iPhone using PhotoForum

Meh, I can tell you what happens at the 20th: some of the guys are bald, some of the cheerleaders got fat, the rest of them are just older, and one or two members of the stoner crowd became, like, a member of Congress or something equally unexpected. The rest of it is hours of, "So, are you married? Got kids? Where are you living? Oh, you like Cabo, too? Hey, whatever happened to [insert random person who didn't show up]. So, you're an accountant, huh? What's that like?" Then you order another beer and move onto the next person and have the same exact conversation for the next half hour.

We're more fun and you know you love us

Wow .. deja vu .... I never realized how exactly it is like that :shock:

 

[limr30 3]

Wow .. deja vu .... I never realized how exactly it is like that :shock:

I calls 'em like I sees 'em :mrgreen:

 

[Designer]

I had such a terrible time in high school that I don't enjoy dredging up old memories. I've gone to exactly one reunion, in spite of the fact that they hold them every five years.

 

[cgw117 142]

LOW-end, generic, taxidermic schlock.

If BS was music, she'd be a brass band.

 

[Designer]

LOW-end schlock

That she is getting paid for.

 

[Derrel]

Her studio is about 12 minutes from my home. I've lived here in this region for 22 years. I have never once heard of this woman until yesterday, through any media outlet, word of mouth, conversation, publication, whatever. Not that I really have my ear to the ground on boudoir shooters, but I am familiar with the work of over 50 of my city's professional photographers,and dozens more who are known in my region of the Pacific Northwest. Yes, she is getting payed. So are a lot of other people who produce low-end schlock. The huge Glamour Shots franchise did a ton of business producing low-end schlock. I think the phrase low-end schlock is a bit harsh for her work, and I do not approve of that baldly dismissive attitude. I am not a fan of her style, but she CAN shoot, and she is a pro, and she does have some lovely images. And I think she shoots to please HER clients, which I see as being a good thing. I personally do not like her style, but then, I am not a client of hers. I don't like escargot or red wines either, so, hey, I don't buy either. Simple concept, really.

I thought about this issue a bit last night. Creative Live does a lot of classes aimed at women who want to enter specific niches in photography, and this shooter calls her boudoir work "empowerment photography". Her video talks about being overweight, and lacking body image confidence herself, and addresses what her type of boudoir photography does as far as boosting client self-esteem. The second video shows her regular,everyday Portland area female clients, photographed in her style. Basically, VERY shallow depth of field that throws large expanses of bare skin into deep,deep defocus, meaning easy retouching, and large areas of skin that can easily be smoothed and "enhanced" with software. If you look at her pictures, she enhances the beautiful features of her regular, everyday women, and obscures the vast majority of them, which is a sort of addition through subtraction process. She shows very little clearly, and obscures the majority of the frame by blowing everything out with wide-open Canon primes that open to f/1.4 and f/1.2. Not to sound sexist, but this is a formula that many women shooters of recent minting tend to like. According to one lens manufacturer's rep I read, the 50mm prime lens is being used HEAVILY by many female photographers, extensively, and it is often their only lens length. There is an entire segment of the photo industry using Canon's fine 50/1.4 and 50/1.2 lenses very heavily; we in fact have three pretty good female shooters here on TPF who shoot their 50mm lenses almost exclusively, and do some damned fine work with them too.

As I see it, Creative Live is catering very heavily to beginning photographers. I have watched multiple of their 3- and 4-day classes, and have seen the audience members and listened to the internet chat based questions that come in, and I find a lot of the presentations very tedious and basic, because the presenters are teaching for a level of photographer with a lot less background and experience in the "fundamentals" than I have, or that many other 10- or 20- or 30-year shooters have. But as far as getting payed for shooting what cgw called "low-end schlock"--well, yeah, she is getting payed. She's found a niche, this "empowerment photography" type of boudoir, and I think it's instructive to look at her typical clients body types and overall appearance, and then see why "she loves her some bokeh". And why, "she loves her some massive skin smoothing." She's shooting a lot of sets of people who want to look pretty,feel pretty, and to have some photos that make them look glamorous. Limiting the DOF drastically does do wonders for pictures; it focuses the viewer's eye on whatever is IN focus, and the rest of the image is mostly suggesting, rather than explicitly revealing. And that is a long-time principle in glamour work: suggesting, rather than baldly showing everything. So, I totally get what she mentions in hr video: she wants to grow "followers", and she's hit upon something that people will pay for. She's targeting a niche market that has a lot of members in it: not the super-fit, ripped, hardbody, runs 8 miles before work, kayaks the Willamette River, hikes the gorge on weekends types of women that are plentiful here in this city. She's going after regular, not-so-fit women who have some body image issues. I know exactly where her studio is, what side of the river she works on, what her neighborhood is really like. She has a big pool of potential clients in that neighborhood. Cross the river at the Broadway Bridge and head to The Pearl District, and the demographic shifts WILDLY, and the fitness nuts and the chic $350 dress and $400 shoes hardbody ladies walk around the neighborhood where rents are $1500 to $2500 a month for high-rise apartments.