Last Chance

I've said before that the last image of the shoot is usually the best one. Why is that? Sometimes it takes most of the shoot to establish a good rapport between the photographer and the model. Sometimes it is because both the model and the photographer have exhausted all their preconceived ideas for the shoot and are finally ready to listen to their muse.
The weeks image is from a shoot today with David and is a case in point -- the last image of the shoot and the best.

Leather Jacket

For this image I placed the dominate light to the reat and to the side, accentuating the feeling that Yvan is comtemplative, in isolation from the rest of the world.

Additionally I had him play with the leather jacket until it became more like binding than a jacket.

Something Different

I shot this image of professional bodybuilder Kevin Levrone about ten years ago at the Mr. Olympia in Los Angeles. The photograph was taken from my seat in the audience with at telephoto lens, without flash and with a high speed film -- most likely 1600 ASA. The grain is a result of the high speed film.

For several years in the ninties I took my camera to bodybuilding events and shot several rolls of high speed film from my seat. With a 300mm lens on a 35mm camera it was fairly easy to get good shots of the pros. I got the best results when I had orchestra seats.

At this Olympia event I was seated in the balcony. Hence the photo is cropped to zero in on Kevin and there is more grain than usual.

Tickets for the Iron Man Invitational held every year in Los Angeles during February were less expensive and it was easy to get seats just a few rows back.

If you try this, the key is to use a 1600 ASA film and turn off your flash. Your flash won't do any good anyway because it only reaches about ten feet. It just makes you look stupid to real photographers.

Praise

Sometimes when I work with a model in the studio and want to loosen him up and discourage him from falling into standard bodybuilding poses, I ask him to swing his arms and throw his head back.

This instruction, like all others I give a model, gets different results each time I try it.

In this image Yvan looks like he could be offering a prayer to the heavens.

Yvan

This image of Yvan was created several years ago. I have worked with Yvan twice over the years. In this first photo shoot with him he was larger and more defined.
Several years later when I worked with Yvan again he had purposely lost size to compete with fashion models in the modeling industry. Although is is still handsome and magic in front of a camera, I personally prefer his look in this shoot.
This image was shot on film in black and white with a Mamiya medium format camera in a rented studio with hot lights. At this point in my career I was just beginning studio work and had not yet bought my own equipment and set up my own space.
Oddly the lighting arrangements in this early shoot are very much like the ones I use today. I am using two equally bright lights at about 90 degrees from the camera on either side of the model.