Homage to Bill Brandt
THINKING:
Bill Brandt is one of my all-time heroes. Why? Because he developed the whole process of fish-eye, ultra wide-angle photography. He had a vision he wanted to create, so he actually made lenses using optics from all sorts of strange sources and then created photographs the like of which had never been seen before.
I think to be able to create an entire vision and mechanics to actually capture that vision is outstanding.
SEEING:
While this image is not strictly fish-eye it is around the 24mm focal length it is getting in that direction. This creates the strong distortion leading to those very long arms and legs of JammyLou.
Lou's perfect smooth skin tones are entirely held within the darker and rougher textures of the stony beach. This provides contrast in both luminance and texture.
DOING:
As ever the trick is to use wide angle deliberately. This means positioning the camera so that the distortion works WITH the image, not against it. By having the view flow down the length of Lou's body we create that extending length (or thinning out) in the limbs.
Camera position down amongst the low rocks also gives interesting foreground objects to compare against Lou's skin.
Remember that wide angle is going to give you a much greater depth of field, that means that the whole of the foreground all the way through Lou's body is still sharp.
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This is an excerpt from "Art Nude Photography Explained" which shows you how to create nude images and how to read and evaluate art nude photographs
It is available on Amazon
or on
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