The Digital Human - Ideas, images and stories: skin

Showing posts with label skin. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Portrait of RM with Heat

The brilliance of the sun on her and the chair and the piercing nature of her look were so intense that not only was it hard for her to open her eyes, it was hard for me to not be blinded while taking the photo.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Portrait of CS With a Window Behind Me

The Model CS. I scouted out this area before she was done working so I knew I wanted to capture someone's face with the beautiful light in the tall windows behind me. She obliged.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Portrait in Reflected Light

She was at the front desk, then in the gallery as I looked at the exhibition. We got into a long discussion about the images in the show and that led to a discussion about my work which led to me asking her if she wanted to create some art with me which led to her saying yes which led us outside to take some photos I will use in a collage and also some straight portraits, of which this is one.

Portrait of CS at the Center for Creative Photography

Monday, November 10, 2008

Composition with Fire Truck in the Fall

First series taken with my new camera, the Panasonic G1. I was doing a shoot in my home and we had her sillhouetted against the window when we realized there was a fire truck in the lonely subdivision on the other side of the park. I asked her to go outside and look at the truck through the top of a broken picket in the back fence. She was a trooper and did so, even though it was windy and cold! I love the pose and the reverse voyeur feeling of the nude looking over the fence at the firement.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Sisters in the Heat

This week is about black and white portraits. I have a weakness for that look that has light showing off the skin, it's texture and details. The one yesterday was about that. This one is from 1991 (or earlier actually, I am not sure). It is a film shot so the skin details aren't there the way I can capture them now, but you can still see my interest in getting the feeling of light and heat on the skin.

Plus, what's not to like about an late 80s early 90s look of hair and clothing, right?

Monday, November 03, 2008

The Hostess

Often I will just play with an image just to keep in practice regarding my Photoshop skills. I spent about 2 hours on this one, just trying different things not having a particular agenda for it since it wasn't commissioned. I like having some time to do that and it is essential for any artist to spend time just 'goofing' off so to speak. Without it your work can become so stale and uninspiring that you cease to do it any more.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Wings and a Star at the Fair

Today you get a double treat of tattoos at the fair!

I noticed the black straps surrounding the tattoo and was intriqued by the writing that was only partially showing. I asked her if I could take a photo and she was very happy to allow it.

I gave her my card and told her if she needed any other photography to give me a call. Her friend piped up and they were from out of town, working one of the booths in the expo building selling shammies I think.

But she said she gets around so she would keep my card, just in case.

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I was eating my required fair meal of italian sausage and notice this couple talking at the table in front of me.

The guy was clingy, wrapping his arms around her again and again, kissing her cheek and generally seeming to want to possess her. She on the other hand simply sat there eating and talking, never once turning to him.

The wind blew her hair and I notice the star tattoo. I went up and asked her if I could take a photo of it and the guy butted in and answered quickly and authoritatively, 'sure you can'. I looked to her and she said 'yes'.

I later saw them walking towards the parking lot and he still had her wrapped up in his arms. It didn't seem to be a good type of wrapping.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

A Snake in the Eulipian Grass

Another in a short series I did using co-workers at the restaurant, Eulipia, where I
worked back in the 80s and 90s in San Jose, Ca. This one was a result of a photo
shoot with a few people who had freckles. I was in the middle of doing a series of
pointillist photo-collages where I glued photos of freckles on top of full-color
reproductions of pointillist paintings I had in a big art book.

This collage came about after I saw the possibility of making the negative background
space of the sky in the prior collage into a solid positive part of the image. In
this case the grass no longer just acts as grass but now has a shape and symbolism
that makes it into a real/not real object.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

A Seldom Seen Stretch of the Eulipian River

I worked at a restaurant named Eulipia in San Jose, California from 1981-1994 while I was going to graduate school and starting out as a college art instructor. I finally left when I moved to Tulsa to start a new career in Interactive Design.

This collage was a result of a photo shoot with three of my co-workers from the restaurant. We did the shoot in one of their backyards while they were sunbathing on a hot summer day. I had been creating a series of collages that used body part close ups combined with sky or other neutral colored backgrounds.

Seldom Seen Stretch of the Eulipian River - Eulipian Series

This collage resulted from having all the photos on my drawing board which was a large door actually attached to two drawing board bases. As I laid them out I started seeing a flow to the images. I originally had only one row, with the body below and the sky above. At that point it seemed like a landscape. But I had a lot of photos from the shoot and I laid out a second row to see if those photos might have a different rhythm and flow to them.

I got the idea to turn the top row over and the blue matched up and became a river in my mind. Then it was just a matter of finding the right place for each photo so the flow of the river was pleasing to my eye.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

She Dreamt it Into Being

I love doing portraits with one eye closed. There is something so disconcerting about
it at first. But it then also allows you to think about two different aspects of the
person at the same time, and how they coexist. Plus it just looks really cool.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

The Vortex She Creates

I did a photo shoot with her back in 2007 and witnessed what a vortex of activity and energy she
created while she was modeling. I kept having a feeling of watching a human tornado. I took
some photos around the house of objects, windows, etc. and put together this collage that really
seemed to play off this idea.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Stars and Straps Forever

Hey it's Fourth of July week here in the states. Can't let it go past without posting my favorite
photos in Red, White and Blue now could I!

This was taken on July 4th, 2007 in Frisco, Colorado at the town parade. A perfect way to show
the american colors and still be stylish. I like it.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Impressionist Composition #8

This week I am going to show you an early series of mine, one of the first where I
collaged photos onto other material. I had been focusing on photographing physical
memories that showed up on one's body and I had done a series on tanlines earlier.
Now I focused on body impressions. These were photos I took of parts of the body
having been pressed by something. Maybe a bracelet, or a bra strap or underwear
elastic. Something that left an impression. I then had the idea of collaging those
photos on top of Impressionist paintings. The play on the idea of impressions on
bodies vs. impressions of light in paint appealed to me.

I took it to the point of making the images a collaboration between the original
impressionist artist and myself, titling the works so they included part of the
original title with my new addition and dating the work from the inception of the
original back in the 1800's to the time I added my photos on top in the 1980s and
90s. Some fellow artists and gallery directors etc. thought that was a bit
pretentious of me, assuming I was equal to the impressionists. But I know this
much....the impressionists themselves would have enjoyed both the fun play on art and
the resulting images.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Queen of Morocco

She was kind and sweet, with big eyes and beautiful skin. She was great at explaining
all the items in the store. She told us she was from the middle of Morocco, in America
to work and learn at Disney World as part of an advanced management program. She
kindly let me take her photograph in the afternoon light. My wife was thinking I was
taking too much time and she needed to get back to her work, but she was happy to pose
for me. We bought some rubbing spices for food and they were yummy.

Orlando, Florida

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The Observer and the Observed

I noticed the woman in the distance drawing me while I waited at the coffee house for
my friend who was going to model for me. When she arrived I did some drawings of her,
then some photos. All the while the woman in the background was drawing me. This was
quite ironic since I had met my model while drawing her at another coffee house just
days before.

We were right next to a big picture window and my friend had this luminous glow on
her skin from the sky reflecting into the space. Meanwhile back in the establishment
the woman doing the drawing was bathed in indoor incandescent light. I loved the
contrast and did my best to get both in one image. I could have worked out an image
that had both in focus but I liked the blurred image in the back since you could see
all you needed to in it without the focus.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Jeweler Who Didn't Like the First One

I went into a jewelry store in Tulsa looking for something specific for my wife. I didn't find it but had a great salesperson help me. She was informative and thoughtful. The whole front of the store was facing south with big windows and it was winter time so the sun was streaming in. It bounced off the floor and glass cases and landed on her in a wonderful way. I asked her if I could take some photos of her and she obliged me.

I did a collage and showed it to her a few days later. She was upset about how it looked, thinking I had made her look rather ugly. I didn't think it did, but I didn't post it out of respect for her discomfort. I did this one later, working with less manipulation and distortion and I think she was happier with it.

I love this piece because of how I got the hair and the line of her face to match up. She is the same top to bottom but then a second look obviously shows something isn't as it should be. Just a bit of a skewed perspective on the portrait.