These images were shot in June, 2010. The room was small and warm. It didn’t take much help for the flour to stick to her skin. In person, it looked as though a bakery had exploded in the room. I worked with some bakery-oriented backgrounds but didn’t like they way they fit the frame. Granite (the kind polished down for kitchen counters), mountains, and a lake worked better. Fourteen years is a long time. Looking back at these is fun.
Fun fact: that’s taco seasoning on her skin.
It didn’t come off for almost a week.
There is no sermon to preach here, merely an observation to make. Both sets of pictures are the same source. The first set, with my signature under them, is as I chose to process them in 2010 with the tools I had available at the time. The second set is how I chose to re-process them yesterday, 14 years later, with the tools I have available today. There is no judgment as to which set is better. They are simply different.
I’ve been hearing sirens annoying close since 4:00 AM this morning. There are a lot of problems. I think the best solution is to stay home and stay naked.
Today has been unpleasant as the rain continued with little abatement. I’ve not been able to rest more than 30 minutes at a time. I’ve been unable to eat, so I’ll need to force myself now. Even watching anything of length has been challenging. So, I’ve edited old pictures.
I rarely toss someone out in the rain because of the threat of lightning. Showers are a much better way of getting someone wet, but they have the problem of having perhaps the most boring background in the world. So, I went back to some different shoots, some all the way back to 2008, and fixed that problem a bit with AI. This achieves an effect we wouldn’t dare try in reality. I suppose we could have faked it, but the cost factor would be problematic. The biggest challenge here was that the 2008 shots were saved at a small 72 dpi, forcing us to upscale them. Again, the AI helps keep the image from pixelating. I hope you find them interesting.
Plenty of times, I’ve had to do a shoot with less-than-optimal resources. I’ve shot against bare concrete walls, in dim light with a single bulb, and in places where we all needed a shower afterward. I usually can make almost anything work. That doesn’t necessarily mean I like all the photos. Seven (really? seven?) years ago, we did a shoot here at the house because it was cold, wet, and rainy outside. I hung up a couple of sheets to use as a backdrop, and then, for reasons I really don’t recall, I asked the model to hang from a chin-up bar. For the few images I processed, I simply smoothed out the color of the backdrop and ran with it. The results were, in my opinion, boring.
This is where I feel AI makes a good addition to my bag of tricks. I like the model and I like the poses. She did a great job and given that she moved to Florida and had a baby, I’m pretty sure I’ll not get to work with her again. AI gives us the chance to replace the boring background with one that is at least a bit more interesting.
For comparison, here’s a RAW, unedited image from the set:
While AI gives us a lot of choices, I chose to go with fantasy-styled themes that invoke a lot of vines. This, hopefully, gives the impression that, even though you can’t see her hands, she’s hanging from something solid and not just running around with her hands in the air. Of course, that means doing a lot of post work to make sure the model and the background work together. Ugh. Nothing ever comes as easy as one might think. This certainly isn’t a one-button solution. Still, in my opinion, the images are more interesting than a plain background. Let me know if you agree.
There are a number of images that have aged off the server. We caught a few and put them back.
I love it when friends take time to spend time with an old goat like me. I also loved that the mirror on the wall provides a nice frame for our picture. They even took me to the store!
We Are Drowning In The Ever-Breaking Waves Of Insane Words By Politicians
There is no such thing as presidential immunity and anyone arguing so is a traitor.
I dare you to prove me wrong. We were all taught that no one was above the law. The entire purpose of the Constitution was to make dead sure that the United States does not fall under the absolute power of a king or dictator. Loathing should be directed toward anyone who advocates otherwise. To support presidential immunity is to advocate for the overthrow of the government through such acts.
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