Categories
fine art nudes

Wings on Meluxine

© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Melamine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Melamine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Melamine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Melamine
Categories
fine art nudes

meLUXine

always wanted to write her name that way. when christian and i were finished shooting we climbed a big hill in my truck – trucks are awesome – up in a residential area until the road ended with a horse staring at us. literally. i spied these massive leaves and decided i needed one. i got the smallest one i could and it still stuck out a bit from the bed of the truck. it must have been about 10 ft. long. couldn’t have done that in a car. thanks truck. and @meluxine posed brilliantly with it. here are a few.

 

© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Meluxine
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Meluxine
Categories
fine art nudes story telling travel

Tara Tree – Illuminata

Tara Tree - Illuminata ©2016
Tara Tree – Illuminata ©2016

Tara Tree – Illuminata

This is another image where I’m fairly sure I can’t say I came up with the concept. Tara Tree and I were scouting locations in Kauai when we decided to explore a cave. We were taking phone photos of various places we visited and I believe it was Tara who snapped a photo of me standing with the wide entrance of the cave behind me. An almost alien silhouette.

I say I believe it was Tara who took the photo that inspired this one, because going back through my iPhone photos from that day, I don’t see the image I remember us both being excited about. In other words, not on my phone, so I didn’t make it. It was Tara. Definitely Tara.

I kept that happy snapshot discovery in the back of my head when Tara and I returned on our actual shoot morning. And we began deep inside the cave with the light coming in from the entrance, our only light source, directly at Tara with me in between. After about an hour of making beautiful photographs of Tara from that vantage point, I remembered the alien silhouette snapshot. And we traded places.

Tara began a series of dances and poses that were all quite lovely, but it was one that we made at the beginning that caught my eye weeks later. And I’m fairly sure it’s one of Tara moving between poses actually. But I love the simplicity of her near genuflect in that light. Almost as if she’s emerging from a cocoon of darkness into this dazzling light.

It just feels like a new beginning to me. Which is what I was truly feeling on this subterranean day of discovery. Thank you, Tara Tree!

Categories
fine art nudes story telling travel

Jessamyne – A Million Miles Away

Jessamyne - A Million Miles Away ©2016
Jessamyne – A Million Miles Away ©2016

Jessamyne – A Million Miles Away

“What?!”

“I said, that’s good! Lean forward like that again!”

“What?!”

I held my index finger up to Jessamyne in the international gesture of, “Hold on a sec.”

You see, she was outside on the deck of our Hawaiian oceanfront villa and I was inside, photographing her through a window. And that pesky relentless ocean roar, was making communication beyond hand signals more or less impossible. Such are the hazards of beach living.

We had a quick conference out on the desk and I ran back inside. This was our 12th setup of the day. We needed few words anymore at that point to communicate. We were in a groove.

A few days earlier we had gone through her luggage and picked out several beautiful things to photograph her in. Beautiful lace, sheer and vintage fabrics, so even though Jessa is gorgeous in nothing at all, it would have been a missed opportunity to not photograph her wearing a few of these one of a kind designs.

This day was my first time photographing Jessa, although I had been an admirer of her work for some time. She’s originally from Perth, Australia, but happily, we have both ended up in Los Angeles at the present time. And we’re already planning more collaborations, which I couldn’t be more excited about. Thank you, Jessamyne!

Categories
fine art nudes

Christian shoot No. 5 part II

© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian

@christianvh and I wandered over to where the fishermen were for these. We scored points for keeping them out of our area. Except there were dead things in our area and I had to cut and run before I puked. Nothing like a dead shark on a black rock being baked by the sun. BLEK. But when you see an image you power through.

 

 

Categories
fine art nudes

Christian shoot No. 5

z-christian024.1

© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Christian
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Christian

I’m really happy with these. Hope you all are too. @christianvh thanks for getting sandy.

I could really have another swim on that beach again. Sigh.

 

 

Categories
story telling travel

Meluxine – Dress Handfuls

Meluxine - Dress Handfuls (color version) ©2016
Meluxine – Dress Handfuls (color version) ©2016

Meluxine – Dress Handfuls

“Aw, we lost the sun,” Meluxine said, as she noticed the gorgeous shafts of sunlight that until very recently had been beautifully falling on her through the window, had faded away. I pulled the camera away from my eye and walked over to the window. I had noticed it too, but I was wondering if the sun had dipped behind the clouds for a few seconds or whether it was going to be gone for a bit longer.

That’s the thing about Kauai. It can be sunny one minute, cloudy the next, and then rainy-sunny somehow, or any combination in a period of 20 minutes. But even the cloudiness or the rain is quite lovely. By the end of our 10 days on our island paradise, even we were starting to say, “Look. Another rainbow,” more matter of factly and with a slightly lower amount of surprised enthusiasm than when we first arrived. Funny how you can begin to take even double rainbows for granted on this island. There are just so many! Every day!

Anyway, it was Meluxine who suggested maybe we head out to the beach and just see what we could make in the overcast for a bit. “Just until the sun comes back.”

But as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, even the, this probably won’t work but let’s try it anyway, setups, were turning into magic. And we hadn’t been down there on the beach shooting for more than a few minutes when we both started to feel like the overcast was working like crazy. Beautiful non-directional light. The sky was a giant softbox above.

I had turned the color off on the display of my camera, so we were looking at B&W images when we stopped to review. And what we were seeing was reminding me of images you might see in those great British mod fashion shoots from the 60s. I don’t know if it was the light or what. More likely Meluxine channeling something wonderful in that lovely striped dress we had been shooting inside with a few minutes earlier. She was so on.

And as it always did, after about 20 minutes, the sun began to peek out from the clouds again. But since the clouds were moving in a direction from over my head towards Meluxine, we started to get some great light on her, but with the still brooding clouds behind her along the beach.

And so we had a dilemma. A good dilemma. As we began to review the photos weeks later remotely, me back on the mainland in Los Angeles and she in Sydney, Australia, I had processed this particular image two ways. First in b&w as we had originally intended, but also in color. And there were good qualities about both of them. We really couldn’t decide.

Meluxine - Dress Handfuls (b&w version) ©2016
Meluxine – Dress Handfuls (b&w version) ©2016

But for me, even though I’m really an artist who loves b&w, I think the color one edges out the b&w in this case. But only very slightly. I think the photos from a few minutes earlier than this one will still look best in b&w. But this particular image, with the sun juuuuuuust starting to peek out, color wins.

What do you think, Gentle Readers? Color or b&w? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Categories
fine art nudes story telling travel

Meluxine – Looking Inside

Meluxine - Looking Inside ©2016
Meluxine – Looking Inside ©2016

Meluxine – Looking Inside

You know when you’re having one of those days when everything you touch turns to gold? They don’t happen often, but when they do, the feeling is extraordinary. Meluxine and I were definitely having one of those days the first time we ever shot together. Even the, this probably won’t work but let’s try it anyway, setups turned out to be magical. Which leads me to the distinct possibility.

Meluxine might well indeed be magic.

I mean, I don’t know that for certain. Just throwing the possibility out there.

Meluxine was one of my beautiful housemates on the island of Kauai. I met her and Anne, who was also staying with me, at the Lihue airport, when I arrived from Los Angeles and they from Australia, to drive us to our lovely resort suite. So even before photographing her, I had a lot of time to get to know her.

I find that always helps when photographing someone for the first time. Because I’m not only learning the physical characteristics of any new model I’m collaborating with, but also learning her point of view. What’s on her mind. What she’s about. Having a head start on knowing those latter things, always makes for better photographs. Because then I’m not just photographing what she looks like, I’m really photographing her.

But whatever the reason, as Meluxine and I have discussed since then, what we did that day was some of the best most personally satisfying work either of had done in a while. We’ve really enjoyed going over the images since then. Picking out favorites. And there are a lot!

And I’ve queued up another beautiful photo of her for tomorrow. So stay tuned, Gentle Readers!

Categories
fine art nudes story telling travel

Anne Duffy – Crown of Shadows

Anne Duffy - Crown of Shadows ©2016
Anne Duffy – Crown of Shadows ©2016

Anne Duffy – Crown of Shadows

Anne has one of the most beautiful faces I have ever come to know. I’ve felt that way since before I actually got to work with her years ago. Her portfolio is full of some of the most striking images I’ve ever seen.

All week we’d been talking about shooting her in a specific lingerie set she had brought to Kauai with her. The mood of the shoot. Where it would be. How it would look. And sadly we just ran out of time to do it the way we imagined. But I did have a lighting setup in place for the equally lovely Meluxine who I had just finished shooting, when Anne and I realized we both had a free hour. I made a few adjustments and Anne and I decided to use the small time we had. Better something than not, you know?

But the glorious part of it is, we created some beautiful images, regardless of our original idea. Anne knows light so well that without even looking she was able to create wonderful shadows with her body and limbs. She always looks so effortless with her poses, even though there’s nothing effortless about them.

The lingerie she’s wearing is actually Victoria’s Secret, which came as a surprise to me, because I haven’t been wowed by anything from that brand in over ten years. But this piece was beautiful. Something I’d expect to see from La Perla or Agent Provocateur, honestly. And it worked so well with Anne’s porcelain skin and dark brunette hair.

Sometimes an hour with Anne is all you need to make something incredible.

Categories
fine art nudes

Vassanta off trail

The overgrown plant life in Kauai is incredible. @vassanta walked ahead of me after shooting in the creek and said “look at all this we need to shoot this.” So we did. The leaves were so huge I wanted to use them for more than just a backdrop so I asked her to cover her face with one of the leaves. Then the mosquitos arrived… And we ran.

 

© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman - model: Vassanta
© 2016 Zoe Wiseman – model: Vassanta