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AlexandraB24 — Reality check
Published: 2010-03-10 21:15:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 1343; Favourites: 36; Downloads: 0
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Photographer: Ashley Cameron[link]
I did a shoot with Ashley this afternoon. He found me on Purestorm a couple of days ago and said he really wanted to photograph me. I had an interesting conversation with him over the phone and agreed to do the shoot earlier this afternoon.
As I sat at my desk to work on my computer just a few moments ago I got this note from him and this shot.
"Thanks for today" he says "it was lovely working with you, this is the one for me, there's lots of others and I'll send you them soon but for me this is exactly what I was looking for, it's honest beauty and I'm very happy with it.
Hope to see you again"
It's been a while since any photographer managed to get 'me' in their shots, fully unguarded. I think Ashley just managed that.
Ashley specialises in retouching, a very common practice in advertising, fewer and fewer photographers have the time to spend hours on the computer screen with Photoshop, not in the world of advertising and commercial photography.
But this shot , though processed, is not retouched and I like it all the better for it.
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Comments: 16
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Wow, this is beautiful, and the emotion that was pulled is perfect. I have only begin with expressions in photography, and this take the cake. The colors are balanced, and what you said was a good red. Excellent.
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Magnificent tones texture and detailing ... I find it interesting how you differentiate between processed and retouched, whichever it be, it can't be "as is" ... never mind, its a great image, posed and captured
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By processed I mean that the levels are corrected, the contrast is set right, that kind of thing. A simple automatic conversion from raw to jpeg does not count, it still needs some work. By retouched I mean that wrinkles and skin blemishes are removed, lips made fuller and redder and so on and so forth. There has to be a distinction made between just refining a photograph and altering the features of the subject. By manipulation I mean that the background is changed, figures are merged or removed and so on
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Thanks Alex ... always a good thing for folks to understand each other and word usage helps. Have a pleasant weekend ...
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Beautiful portrait, very expressive of mood, great lighting
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cool and wonderfully expressive
I am glad you have a good shoot
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I like the way it was processed. Flattering, but not false.
You did well in portraying both softness and strength.
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Fine image, deserving of praise. Well done to all.
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An amazing portrait, Alex. Wonderful and soulful. Marvelous in every way. It's so perfect that I thought it was a painting until I went full size with it.
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Such a powerful image and yes, definitely off guard or was it acted for the drama in the image?
Either way, incredible.
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Jan, how very perceptive of you to ask this question. It was indeed acted, inevitably so. We talked a lot, Ashley and I, and he told me what he was after. The first hour of the shoot was spent with me viewing his portfolio and getting a sense of where he was at and what he sought. I looked at the books on his shelf and got a sense of his likes and dislikes. I allowed myself to feel vulnerable in his presence. He wanted softness and strength combined, because he felt I had both within me. I let it all surface. For some reason I thought of my maternal grandmother during the shoot and I ended up looking like her, though only close relatives would be able to see it.
You are very right in saying that this was a form of acting, because it is. And yet it does not mean that there is no truth to it.
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Thank you Alex. I have always seen modeling as a way of acting in a way. In the sense that you need to almost get into a character or headset of a person to create the appropriate/desired work for the shoot.
How very interesting that you can see your grandmother in your image - I find that totally fascinating.
Bravo to you for being so astute looking around at books - all models should take note of this and do the same. Very astute (that was not meant to be patronising, so I do hope it doesn't sound it).
Jan.
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First, this is beautiful, beautiful! I am glad to "hear" you affirm that Ashley caught the real you here, because that's exactly what I thought when I first saw the thumbnail.
As for the "acting" element, I've done some acting myself--I was in the chorus for a rock opera, "Magdalene, Woman of Light", here in Denver in 2008--and talked to some very good actors. Acting at its best is not "portraying" or "mimicking" a character; it's becoming that character. Mimicry is always false; real acting is showing the truth as the character lives it. It's a vehicle to explore the truth. This is what I see here.
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