Denisa Going sculptural (Patreon)

When I started shooting nudes some 8 years ago I was looking for a creative outlet. I had a bit of a burnout creating advertising for many years and had stopped photographing entirely for 6-7 years.

I needed a place where I could channel my creative energy, and was torn between landscape, portraiture and artistic nudes. The reason I had selected these three categories was that they were not closely related to advertising photography and that they are challenging. 

After a lot of consideration I settled on Nudes for three main reasons:

• I love women and have always been attracted to the female anatomy
• Shooting tactful artistic nudes is challenging 
• It requires a lot less logistics around the shoot (arranging props, costume etc.)

There is something poetic about the fact that these days my photography are really a mix of the three genres. A lot of what I do is intimate nude portraits riddled with emotion in exquisite landscapes. 

But that is for another post.

Here I want to focus on sculptural images and at the same time showcase one of the 2-3 best models I have ever worked within this genre, Namely Denisa Strakova.

I've used Denisa at a couple of my workshops and have a vivid recollection of how blown away the participants were. One participant had brought along a mood-board with 6 poses he'd like to shoot, but I persuaded him to go about it differently with Denisa.

I said something along the lines of "point the camera in the right direction and just try to keep up. Then when you see something you like, stop her and start directing".

He was flabbergasted at Denisa's capabilities and quite sweaty after the shoot.

Here is a movie from that workshop to give you an idea. This is an 8x speed timelapse that takes 40 sec all in all, so less than 5 minutes of actual shooting. Look closely and imagine how many good images you could have from a shoot like this. Had he gone with his mood-board the results would have been somewhat more paltry.

But back to the shoot where the images above are from:

I had never shot with Denisa before, and I arrived back in Copenhagen from a trip to Budapest the day before this shoot, and we only had about two hours to shoot including setting up lights.

I honestly did not have big expectations, but Denisa put that to shame.

When shooting this style of image where there essentially is little background (I say little because I prefer to have something over nothing, I don't particularly fancy seamless backgrounds as you loose dimension and space - and place your model in a void).

When there is only little background available, you have to work harder to obtain depth and definition in the skin, and you have to create compelling lines and structure in the skin so there is something to work with for the brain.

Lighting wise this is a 4x10'/1.20x2.40m wood frame with some lee or Rosco diffusion filter taped to either side - and a direct lamp head shooting through. I'll soon make a small video manual on how to make one of these super cheap.

It gives a slightly harder and directional light than if I had been using a white fabric diffusion panel like the commercial ones from Lastolite etc. And to make sure I get good shadows I have a couple of Black Foamcore boards on the right side of the model, to minimize reflection from the wall.

Look out for the BTS video from this shoot which will be posted tomorrow.

Enjoy.