Today’s Post by Blue Moon Staff
One of my Italian grandfather’s favorite expressions was, “If you spend your life trying to be happy, it will make you miserable.”
I think the same thing could be said for some people’s quest for perfection in their appearance, especially when they see some of the beautiful women that I’ve photographed on this website.
But few of us, indeed, are perfect; we’re only human after all. That’s one of the reason we started the Sexy Mom promotion.
On this blog, you’ll only rarely see a portrait of a professional model, although sometimes they will be photographs of aspiring models who are looking to build up their portfolios. But most of the time the portraits will be of an normal, everyday women who want to have a beautiful, sexy portrait made.
We all have flaws but some of them, even the imagined ones, become hot buttons when selecting the best photograph of yourself. I once had a client tell me she had a “big butt” because her boyfriend told her so but in reality this was not the case. So any photographs that hid her perceived flaw was going to be her choice even if her face—the real subject of any portrait—doesn’t have the best expression or best angle.
It should come as no surprise that few people are perfect. Even many top models have imperfections ranging from gaps in their teeth to tattoos in unexpected places so if you’re concerned about how your intimate portrait will look, I have some advice: Don’t let it bother you, let us make the most beautiful portrait of you just as we have done for all of our previous clients over the past several years.
About this portrait: Today’s featured image of Anna was created as a gift for the model’s fiancée.This high key portrait was made of her wearing, mostly, just a smile, shoes and a scarf that’s one of my studio props. A Wafer HexOval 100 softbox was attached with a Balcar speed ring to a Paul C Buff DigiBee 800 monolight that was was placed at camera right and fairly close to Anna. A Paul C Buff Alien Bee, without a reflector was placed low and at camera left, slightly behind her skimming the wall to highlight the high key look. The backdrop was my home studio’s white walls before they were painted grey. (I’m still not sure that the new color was a good choice but it needed to be painted after “the flood,”)
The camera used was a Panasonic Lumix GH4 with a Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 at 36mm. Exposure was (slightly underexposed at) 1/125 sec at f/13 and ISO ISO 200. The portrait was retouched the way I typically do for a portrait of a mature woman; I don’t want to erase everything on her face and make the image look like a high school senior portrait.
