Friday, December 31, 2010

Neglected Beauty

I've long neglected my beauty work. I have condensed what I do with beauty into less and less steps. So much so that I've pretty much moved away from most beauty work. I do what I consider "headshots". Realistic. To-the-point. Great representations of the actual person.

But that's not beauty.

Here's a great example:

Kristen from PhotoGenics. H3DII-31/HC-210mm. 1/500th f/11 ISO200.

For all you know, that's exactly how this image came out of the box. Totally believable. Highlights and shadows intact. Simple B&W conversion.

Of course, that isn't true. But it could be true.

Here's what I consider the traditional beauty image:

Anneliese from Next. H3DII-31/HC-210mm. 1/500th f/9.5 ISO100.

Lots of desaturation in skin-tones. Unreal highlights and shadows. Selective saturation of red/purples. That being said, my "version" of beauty in this example isn't particularly extreme. I suppose Anneliese could have looked like that out of the box. I didn't really push the highlights and shadows that hard. I suppose I'm still portraying a very possible/real image.

I might try my hand at more traditional beauty going forward. But with the amount of time I spent on this image, it's so hard to justify the returns.

2 comments:

  1. hellO Charles ,

    thanx for posting these :-)

    there are big magenta/red marks on her neck and left side on the BW photo
    do you have them also or is it my monitor?

    Indi

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Indi, it's not your imagination... I put them there :)

    ReplyDelete