Grey Paper

It's been a long while since I pulled out the grey seamless paper at the studio. I still have the 3-section stands that can accomodate 12-foot rolls (if I recall correctly) though all my seamless rolls of paper were 9-foot rolls because they were much cheaper.

And it was always the grey that I used even though I experimented with many different colors I always came back to grey.

And it was a special grey. I played around with all the different variants of grey. Ultimately I preferred grey that was a touch darker and with my retouching style always brought out a bit of blue. That must have been my Provia curve in Photoshop. Regardless, a fashion photographer has to have either a cyclorama wall (cyc wall) or seamless paper or both. There's nothing quite like putting a model on grey paper and just isolating them on the paper so there's nothing left to distract the viewer.

Of course once I left the studio, I also left all my rolls of paper behind. There were a couple times I setup the seamless paper on a tennis court to get the magic of direct sunlight with the austerity of paper but I also remember the wind knocking over the stands and having the seamless paper topple over, threatening to kill my model. Of course I didn't use sandbags. Probably should have but I always traveled light and no I didn't account for the afternoon winds to create problems.

Meisel's influence is strong

So today when playing around with Stable Diffusion, I used this reference picture of a male model shot by the great Steven Meisel, borrowed his pose through ControlNet's Openpose editor, then adjusted the pose for proportions befitting a female model, then provided the proper prompts that would emulate a photostudio environment, also used the same image of the male model again as a reference through ControlNet Reference and after about 6 hours of tweaking the results these were the images that I "settled" on. Of course I needed to create toes, inpaint some thong bottoms, fix some corners and flaws with the backdrop but overall I was pleasantly surprised.

I suppose it was mostly nostalgia for the paper background. Nostalgia for shooting with one light. Nostalgia for shooting black and white studio portraits like I did back in my second and third year as a photographer. And this SD1.5 model (because SDXL kinda sucks) I'm using has been beyond impressive with its realism. The moles on the neck, the flowy gown that's attached on both the top and the bottom, quite brilliant and at least something I haven't seen before.

I always loved shooting tight crops to contrast the full-length shots

Why did I write this post? Was it simply to expound my thoughts on grey paper? Not particularly. Having Stable Diffusion and being able to "go full circle" and revisit some of my old "stomping grounds" gives me new insight into how I shoot and what I value. I value the female form, the silhouette, the simplicity of the model particularly when placed against a simple background. This presentation forces me to focus in on what truly attracts the viewers to look more closely. Is it the moment in time that can not be reproduced? The eye contact (or lack thereof)? The motion blur? The vulnerability mixed with tension? I dunno. But the subject (model) is always the most interesting to me and as I have drifted away from studio environments I think too have drifted away from sometimes presenting that which is pure and simple. Too often these days I find myself being distracted and struggling with lighting and negotiating the background. It's both frustrating and takes away from my attention for the connection with the subject and the subject's connection with the audience. And for Stable Diffusion to replicate those vibes for me in the computer is both impressive and worth discussing because it's been a long while since I've seen anything in the studio that piqued my interest.