The 2006 Fluffy Nude Photographic Awards

We have been following many art-nude blogs and general photographic sites for about a year now. Both Rich and I have developed some definite favourites who have inspired us on a daily basis, plus we have been discussing this post for a little while now. So we figured that we'd let those talented guys on the other side of the pond know how much we love ‘em….

Initially, we really hesitated when doing this. I mean, we know practically zip about photography and Art compared to the rest of the planet, but then we figured:

a) We are as qualified as anyone to judge our favourite artists, and
b) We love all the artists featured below (and many more). Why the hell shouldn’t we celebrate our favourite art, influences and inspirations for the last year ? And lastly,
c) We are horribly arrogant Brits to judge other photographers and models, but we are in the UK and it’s a helluva long way for you guys to come and lynch us.

So here goes:

Award for best Overall Nude Blog

This is the main award for the Best Nude Blog including all styles of photographic nudes rather than just the classic fine-art nude style. But for sheer quality, perseverance, beautiful (and often challenging) images but above all, very good writing, it has to be the iconic Hotel Room Nudes

Don's photo of Lapis is IMO one of the best




Award for Best Fine-Art Nude Blog

Oooh! This is the ultimate toughie. Too tough in fact.
However we both are unanimous that Gary M's Implications and Experience produces outstanding fine-art nude photographs again and again practically every day of the year. We don’t know how he is so consistently good, dammit. Doesn’t the guy ever have an off day ?!


Carlotta by Gary M

Best Model Blog

Again, way too close to call, and too many talented models to mention. But in the end we idolise Candy of Feminism without Clothes


Photograph by the impressive David LeBeck

Also, special additional mention goes to Iris, whose blog is also wonderful.

Best Glamour Blog

Why, of course it HAS TO BE Jimmy D's Pretty Girl Shooter



Katarina By Jimmy D. We’ve never seen such good glamour photography which captures the personality of the model like this.

Best Stylish Blog of the year

Nad Iksodas. Wow Dan’s images as so coooool…..His photos have a real “feel” to them, and ooze style.


Alana by Nad Iksodas

Best Post of the Year

“Pornography” by Story Beneath the Skin a.k.a. Melvin Moten
Outstanding writing. Really makes you think.

Best Blog Image of the year

Oh it simply is not possible to decide.
So we chose a couple each.

Richard: It was difficult to find one image that stood above all the others, given the excellent quality of images used in blogs this year. However, I have selected one of Gary M's photos as my choice



Lin: I really love this image of Pistol from Magic Flute Nudes, which is IMO his best to date:



Just breathtaking!

Best Non-Blog image of the year

Our favourite photos of the year (outside blogs) are:

Richard: I love this photograph by Sascha Hüttenhain who produces some of the best imagery I have seen.


The composition and lighting are just perfect.

Lin: It has to be Marcus Ranum. It's always Marcus (and the ever-perfect muse and model Rael of course)


Apologies to all photographers, whose work we did not always ask permission to reproduce. You are ALL amazing artists, and we love admiring your work.

Thank you for inspiring us on a daily basis!

All the best for 2007!

Richard and Lin

Christmas Cake Recipe

At this time of year, I generally make a last-minute Christmas cake.

Recipe as follows:

Take a big helping of several months overwork and stress, season generously with seven weeks with no shoot, add a month’s neglect from one’s partner (also due to aforesaid chronic overwork), then add three cups of children plus one mother-in-law. Whisk vigorously with fourteen visits to the supermarket in as many days, and fold in four nights with no sleep due to toddler with conjunctivitis.

Dollop mixture into greased cake tin.
Finally sprinkle too many Christmas social engagements on top, until you can hardly see the cake.

(Cooks Tip: At this point, don’t worry about the cake not being visible. Rest assured it’s mixed up quite thoroughly underneath)

Put in hottest part of the oven and bake for several days. Watch this cake carefully at all times because it can easily burn.

Take out just before Christmas when the top of the cake appears firm and crusty to the touch but is actually still moist and soggy inside.

(Cooks Tip: To determine if cake is moist inside, insert skewer. If it comes out messy, then cake is not yet done)

Let cool in the tin for several hours before turning out onto a rack. You can then add additional flavour to the cake by making a small hole in the top of the cake and adding quite a lot of sherry. This also acts as a relaxant for the cake.

This cake can be reheated extremely easily at any point, if you want to serve it toasty hot with Christmas Rum ‘n’ Brandy Sauce.

Whatever you’re all doing this Christmas, Rich and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!



Our Christmas Model is Claire Louisa again, in one of our favourite images.

The great TFP debate, part 2

A link to my previous TFP post caused all sorts of interesting musings at the Glamour1 forums and some interesting feedback in the post comments. So reading these replies I have decided to post a follow up.

A few approaches to TFP were suggested in the forums:

1) Everyone is responsible for themselves and their own equipment/clothing/makeup/hair. Images provided.

This is true TFP and I don’t have any problem with this. However, my experience and the experiences I’ve read about lead me to believe that this rarely happens.

2) Portfolio sessions that go indoors to studio situations or require a MUA will be "Expenses Covered by Model"...ie. Studio rental, MUA kit costs, any other expenses that come up. Photographers time will still be freely given. Images provided.

So the model covers the cost of the studio, the MUA and all other sundries while the photographer brings his camera, probably shoots digital and supplies a CD. I doubt if any established model would go for this unless the photographer’s port was full of killer images, in which case they would pay be prepared to pay anyway. If a photographer gets away with this on a newbie model then shame on him as it is IMO exploitation.

TFP should mean just that. Each person picks up their own costs. When this is not true and one half of the team has something to offer that is of greater value than the other, there should be payment of some kind.

Targeting newbie models with camera phone photos and offering them better shots to improve their port, but offering to let them pick up all the expenses is just not TFP.

As I see it there should be one of several things happening twixt model and photographer:
1. Both cover their costs (and MUA if applicable). Neither pays the other. Both pay half for any hired resources such as a studio.
2. Model pays photographer
3. Photographer pays model
4. Part pay. One pays the other with added portfolio rights.
5. The client pays all. This is the winning scheme.

The problem with TFP is that there is little of it about. Often both parties think that they are the ones whose time is of most value. The models doesn’t see the costs of equipment or post processing as being as valuable as their tuning up because you couldn’t shoot without them. And the photographers see their experience and equipment as being of the most value. So usually, one or the other starts harping on about the other covering expenses. As soon as money changes hands it‘s not TFP, its part paid.

If its part paid then call it that and negotiate the price, be it model paying for an MUA and studio, or the photographer paying the models expenses.

Now Melvyn commented:
“By the same token, a good art photographer deserves to be paid too, but that doesn’t seem to happen very often either. I'd love to pay everybody I work with bucketloads of money, but I haven't got any money,”

Melvyn, you don’t exploit the models. You are a respected art photographer, don’t pay the models, don’t expect pay from the models, and often travel long distances at your own expense to take the shots. This is true TFP.

But there exists a whole group of photographers who target models who are new to the scene and are not going to be able to offer the models images that will really boost their portfolio. There are some very good photographers doing TFP and that makes those models they shoot with lucky. But there are bucket loads of bad ones whose images barely rate better than the cellphone images they are eager to replace. These guys have taken TFP and made a mockery of it. Thus we end up with newbie models who want $100 an hour in payment for their zero experience and photographers who want the models to hire them studios in return for their CD.

I would guess at this stage people are probably thinking “I bet this guy is bitter because he can’t get anyone to shoot TFP!” I shot 3 models TFP before I realized the sham of it all. The images I took are in their ports still.

The reason I decided to pay, or do part paid is that I believe that TFP simply devalues those concerned as soon as money is discussed, and it always is. If my shots are not good enough for someone to pay their own rail fair to get to me so they can use my studio and images, then that’s fine, but lets not call it TFP because its not. Similarly there are those who pay expenses so far over the actual expenses that it’s not even remotely TFP, but by saying that those costs were actually expenses they can call it TFP and keep the myth alive.

Get real people. If it’s TFP then there is NO MONEY exchanged, not even expenses. If you exchange money its part paid.

This is a photo of Jenvy shot TPF from back in May.

Quality not quantity!

One of the recurring themes I come across in blogs is that of increasing the readership by getting more traffic. Recently I’ve seen a trend in bloggers trying to get listed on the main porn indexes as a way to increase traffic. Now that is fine if they are shooting porn or something very similar, but if they are not selling porn then I don’t understand why they would want to do that.

Let’s face it, the people who frequent those lists are not looking for tasteful art, they are looking for a cheap thrill. If they were to come here they wouldn’t stay, because we don’t have what they are looking for. Most of the art sites are like that, they may have some images that are a little raunchier. But to get that type of visitor to stay you have to offer a quick chick fix rather than appeal to their mind. I suppose it’s like mud, if you throw enough of them at your site in one go, some may stick, so maybe that’s the plan.

So why has this post come about? I had a spike in readers after my last post. Looking at the logs there was an extra 200 odd visitors from Glamour1 courtesy of JimmyD from Pretty Girl Shooter posting a link in their forums (thanks Jimmy). Now I don’t know how many of these visitors will return but it struck me that I would rather have 200 like minded visitors than 25,000 porn viewers.

In the online advertising arena they talk of visitor conversions. These are visitors directed to a site by an advert and who end up buying a product. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, it’s the conversions that count. In blogging a conversion is getting someone to visit again and again, and I would love to know the conversion rate of some of the sites that used the porn links to get them more traffic. Is it a spike that fades fast when the chick fix doesn’t materialise, or are they returning viewers with a real interest in what the blog has to say?

Alternatively, do they find that they can get this traffic spike, and then shoot images specifically to get them to stay? The latter reason is very similar to why I left the camera club. I didn’t want to shoot to feed some specific audience and let them tell me what I should shoot. Shooting a specific type of image to keep the porn hits up is the same thing. Just take a deep breath and say no. Shoot for yourself and if they don’t like it they can take a hike. After all, no one pays us to write these blogs. They are ours to say what we want to say and show what we want to show. The visitors that we value will stay.

This image of Claire Louisa will not remotely appeal to those looking for a porn fix, but hopefully will appeal to those of you who appreciate beauty.

The great TFP debate, or why I don’t shoot TFP!

One of the most frequent topics in many of the forums that I read is that of TFP or TFCD. TFP stands for “Time For Print”, while TFCD stands for “Time For CD”.

The idea behind TFP/CD is that the all the participants of the shoot give their time for free and they all benefit from the shoot by getting images from it. Usually the images are portfolio use only and thus can only be used for promotion.

On the face of it is seems like a good deal, everyone shoots for free. However, for some reason many photographers seem to get a sense of kudos from shooting a good model on a TFP basis. A sort of “My work is so good that the model really wanted to work with me for free”. This is especially true when photographing nudes. Most models want paying when being photographed and doubly so if they take their clothes off. So if the model will shoot nude for you for free it says something about you as a photographer.

This results in many threads that go like this:
Photographer A: How do I get models to shoot nude?
Photographer B: Try paying them!
Photographer C: If your work is good enough then you don’t need to pay them, I never pay my models! I only cover their expenses.

So here we have 3 photographers, A wants to shoot nudes, B pays to shoot nudes and C gets them for free.

But there is a sham to TFP that I recently discovered and I don’t think its common knowledge among those that don’t do it. I recently shot a model, I was paying, and at the end she offered to fill out the receipt stating that the entire fee was for travelling expenses. So if I had agreed, I could have claimed that I shot the model for free and only covered their expenses.

I went back and looked at several threads where the photographer has “covered expenses” and have often found that the models travel long distances and get all their expenses covered. So what this amounts to is effectively a photographic holiday. They travel, get their expenses covered and do a few hours shooting. If they plan it well they can get several paying shoots in the area and do well out of it.

Now to me it’s a con. Not on the part of the model, but on the part of the photographer. If you pay, then you pay. To my mind TFP is only TFP if no money changes hands and that would include bus/air/petrol/hotel charges.

I would guess that if each of the photographers who “shoot nudes TFP” actually listed how much their “expenses” actually were, I think that we would all decide they most of them were really paying.

There is another aspect to TFP. Many photographers think that models should shoot with them for free (TFP) because the models need the photographs for their portfolio in order to find paying work. Traditionally models would “test” with a photographer to see if they could work together and pay the photographer for portfolio shots. The photographers would hire models when they had a paid job and the client would pay the photographer and the model.

The arrival of cheap photography has changed that, and there are a very large number of hobby photographers. These photographers think that the models should shoot with them for free (TFP) because it will help the models to get a paying gig with another photographer. But the point they miss is that there are now so many hobby photographers that it has created a new industry of hobby/semi-pro models. These models have to cover many expenses and most of them will never get a gig for a magazine; they simply serve the hobby photographer community with models to shoot.

Thus, unless the model has no portfolio at all, those photographers who insist that they will only shoot TFP (assuming they don’t pay stupid expenses) are just ripping off the models.

If photography is your hobby, then pay the models something. Remember models need to eat too!

This is why I don’t shoot TFP. Shooting TFP and offering silly expenses is simply paying but claiming it’s free because of a technicality. Not paying at all it simply ripping these models off. If a model wants some of my shots then we can negotiate part-payment where they get some images and reduce their fee, or I will pay them. I don’t need to use a technicality to claim I’m good enough that they will shoot for free so that my ego gets a boost.

I’m sorry that this turned into a bit of a rant but I see many models in the forums that are effectively being exploited so that some guy can practice his hobby for free, or photographers who constantly think their work is not good enough because they can’t get models for free.

Please note that this post is not aimed at models, TFP or otherwise, it’s aimed at those photographers who either mislead others, and maybe themselves, or exploit models.

Here is Cheeky Lee, looking, well, cheeky ....

Lulu.com – not for me.

Over the last six months I’ve seen many photographers offering image collections in the form of self published books from Lulu.com

It seems like a good idea. You package your images into a PDF file, send it to Lulu and they hold it on their server, then print it when a copy is ordered, its called “Print on Demand”. Call me silly but I thought that it might make a nice source of coffee table books or just presents for friends. So I decided to have a go at producing a book from Lulu.

As it was going to be my first attempt, and I thought that it might make a nice Christmas present for Lin, I decided to collect the best of her photographs together and make her a book. “L-von-B 2006” was to be the name.

I collected the images together and arranged them into Adobe InDesign which allows me to effectively create the book,. I also created a cover for the book, and together it took about 4 hours to get it right. I followed the layout and sizing instructions from Lulu, created a PDF and uploaded it to their site. Rather than go for the most expensive package available which would have been a hard-backed book, I decided to go for “saddle stitched” (stapled to you and me). I figured that the first one may need colour correcting and it was better to do that on a cheaper version than the most expensive version. Anyway, there was plenty of time until Christmas so after looking at the colour issues I could just create a hard-backed version and order that.

When the first order came through I was horrified. What they sent through was terrible in the extreme. The potential as a present was nil, and as a form of book that people might buy it was laughable.

First I will say what was right:
1. There were the correct number of pages.
2. They were in the correct order
3. It was stapled (it didn’t lie flat but that probably means it should be perfect bound!)

And what was wrong:
1. The colour is so far off I don’t know how it could be corrected
2. The image quality is appalling, the black and white images have no depth and the actual print quality is staggeringly bad.

Now I don’t expect you to take my word for it, so I decided to scan a couple of pages and let you compare the images directly with the originals, (my scanner is calibrated). If you click on the images here a larger version will open for you to see exactly what I’m referring to.

1. The colour cast:
The image below shows the original photograph (right) with the scanned version (left). You can see that the colour is not even close. I expect that it may be possible to work out a way to colour correct the PDF for this, but the actual print quality it’s so bad I’m not going to bother





2. The print quality:
This is where I was most disappointed. I have dealt with many printers and I’ve never seen anything this bad. The areas of solid colour are not solid at all, they are speckled. There are actual stripes on the pages which I assume are roller marks and the contrast level is way too high, causing all shadow detail to disappear and the highlights to be blown.

To illustrate this I have two images to show you.
Image 1 shows the scanned and original images, after I have tweaked the levels a little to show just how bad the printed version is.



The second image, which you can see by clicking here, shows the original scan against the original photograph with no levels modification.


So you can see why I was not happy, why I won’t be using Lulu again and why I won’t be buying any photo books from Lulu. If any of you are considering Lulu I would recommend that you create a proof print for yourself before you commit to them as a printer. So, does anyone know a good print on demand printer than can do the job properly?

Finally here is the lovely Lynx looking amazing as usual.

Mango chutney

Oh dear. My photographer appears to have gone missing.

Instead, I am presented with a 41 year old corpse, closely disguised as my dearest hubby. He has done a 72 hour week, and spent his only day off cleaning out the pool (full of leaves after the recent storms, and pretty grim I can tell you), printing out and posting the remaining two A3 prints to all the models he has shot with this year (as a kind of Christmas pressie, and can you believe that only one model took the time to say thanks so far…much appreciated Meg!), and finally spent four hours putting up the dreaded Christmas decorations, which was way more stressful an experience than it should have been, courtesy of three hyperactive and overly-enthusiastic children.

Our decorating is a Christmas tradition.
We adorn the living room, the hall and in the boys’ bedrooms.
To the tune of our amazingly naff Christmas CD, my older son now has a glaringly tacky fibre-optic Christmas tree, ten tons of baubles and Way Too Much Tinsel in his bedroom. And my younger son has pretty fairy lights, the second ton of tinsel, a blow-up Santa Claus and a rather fetching but odd reindeer-antler Headband, which I actually volunteered to wear nude with bondage rope after the third glass of Sherry.

Plus, it’s official. My two year-old daughter LOVES Christmas. She is going to spend the next three weeks re-decorating the Christmas tree and playing “Fostie the no-man” (as opposed to “Frostie the snowman”, which she can’t pronounce) on her brother’s CD player in his bedroom, and “dancing” ie. furiously jumping up and down like a baby elephant, dressed entirely in pink with co-ordinating reindeer antlers and pink tinsel…

As for me, well I did kind of (literally) bottle out of the decorations initially. Richard does like his decorations very tastefully done, and I don’t do tasteful, I’m afraid.
Instead, I decided to make the mother-in-law some Mango Chutney (which she apparently loves) so I concocted a lethal brew which resulted in the consumption of an entire bottle of wine and sherry (half for the Chutney, half for me & Rich) and a particularly evil-smelling orange goo which did Not Smell Christmassy and which made the house reek of vinegar for the rest of the day. Not nice, despite the alcoholic content (which I don't normally partake of by the way, but today was an exception).
By the time the Evil Orange Chutney was done, I was sufficiently hammered not to care about Christmas and I was happily able to slump on the sofa and fuzzily watch my kids hanging baubles on the tree whilst Rich (resplendent in traditional Santa Claus hat) could cuddle me whilst chatting happily about his next idea for a shoot early next year. Not sure the cuddle and the 34DD model conversation go together, but it’s amazing what fun you can have chatting about Art with your husband whilst mildly drunk.

Yes, I finally found the spirit of Christmas. It was at the bottom of a bottle of Sherry all along. Such a shame I didn’t realise it earlier.

I Love Christmas

I am quite the Grinch at Christmas.
Or at least that’s what my kids call me.
Whilst the rest of the family are getting into the true Christmas mood, singing along to Dean Martin and Bing Crosby, hanging up baubles and decorating the Christmas tree, I go out shopping or to fill up the car with fuel……or anywhere in fact…..it doesn’t matter as long as I can avoid it.

Far be it from me to suggest that Christmas is commercialised crap nowadays, and God forbid I should actually tell the kids that modern Santa in his jolly red suit was invented by the Coca Cola company (sorry to burst your bubble folks!) And as for the house being taken over by gaudy tinsel, tons of screaming kids with very loud toy guns (they have their friends round Christmas week) and piles of relatives, well, I’m about as far from Who-Ville as you can get. I’m right up there on the Grinch’s Mount Crumpet, hissing about Christmas and gluing antlers onto the dog.

Richard loves Christmas, and has very happy memories. It was, after all, the only time of year his parents didn’t argue.
And Christmas always brings up those memories and traditions. Whether or not you love Christmas depends largely on what your Christmasses were like when you were a kid. Let’s face it folks….we become our parents at some point.

My parents didn’t like Christmas ….mostly they went to Spain, so I spent way too many Christmas Days in hotels, wishing I was back in the UK and subscribing to the “True Christmas Experience”. Mind you it was the only time of year that my Dad would play Chess with me, so there were some redeeming features.
But when we were at home for Christmas, EVERY Christmas Day, without fail, the central ceiling light in the living room would fall on my head on Christmas Day. Hard to believe but it’s true. In desperation, my poor parents tried to chain the light to the ceiling one year, but the chain snapped and yep, the light fell on my head again. Spooky eh ? Mind you the house was an old one and was haunted. So my parents took to leaving the country on Christmas Eve.
No wonder I am the Grinch.

But this year it’s gonna be different !!!

I am resolved to enjoy Christmas and discover what it is all about.
I have watched every Christmas cooking programme there is and I am very confident that I can attempt a proper turkey this year, without roasting it upside-down and poisoning my mother-in-law, which is what happened last year.

I have sorted out all the cards and annual letters to obscure relatives very early this year (a totally hateful job…WHY is it that this job falls to women to do?) and I have wrapped and hidden the presents in our secret present hidey- hole (under lock and key) and we are going to put the decorations up this weekend. I will make a SUPREME effort and not run away whilst this is being done. At the very least I think I can manage to hide in the kitchen and bake something Christmassy (involving LOTS of sherry of which, naturally, I must sample a wee dram just to make sure it’s good quality stuff).

And when the relatives come for dinner, it WILL all go perfectly (no arsenic this year then) and I will NOT be remotely stressed. In fact I am going to spend the entire Christmas period in an enlightened Christmas-Zen state of consciousness.

My kids (and the new enlightened Grinch at the end of my daughters book) tell me that Christmas is a feeling inside… Not sure if I’m gonna make it. The kids aren't sure either.



Here is an image of Claire Louisa looking Christmassy….. just to get you in the festive mood

Mr Fluffy does shiny … and likes it!

So this morning there was a beautiful full moon, low on the horizon, and as dawn rose Lin said to me
“Why don’t you go out and photograph the moon?”
“Because it’s cold and dark!” I replied.
“You’re not a very good landscape photographer if you won’t go out at dawn in the cold to take your landscapes, I’ll take my clothes off if you want?”

I tried to explain about the relative brightness of the moon and the darkness of the trees in the garden, to which, smiling Lin said, “I guess you would just rather photograph naked women in the studio, than trees in the cold and dark, wouldn’t you?”
“Who wouldn’t?” I smiled in reply.

I’ve been burning the candle at both ends, at the day job, over the last few weeks. Starting at 7:30am and running to about 7pm. Saturdays I’m doing 7:30 till 1pm. That’s why there have not been many posts from me.

Last Monday I took some time out, as you will have heard from Lin’s posts, to photograph the lovely Roswell Ivory. Apart from the domestic heating issue that Lin described the shoot went well.

As well as my regular art-nude shots we tried some shiny latex fashion type shots. I’ve been spending some of the little time I have free finishing the images and I very much like the results. The first image in this post is an example of the type of images we made. It’s one of the first that we took and it gives an indication of where we were going in the shoot. I do think the images became better as the shoot progressed.

The thing I have found though is that I can’t really decide on a category that they would fit in.

I also tried some glamour type shots, in colour, with the blue backdrop. Again, I’m not sure if you would categorise them as glamour.

I’d love to know how you would categorise them. Suggestions?

Retifism - the scientific explanation

An off-blog comment from my ultra-clever psychologist/art buddy :

“Regarding the whole "shoe" thing, you've missed the neurobiology approach :-)
If you look at a brain map, which shows how skin touch senses mapped on to the cortex, you'll notice that the sense areas for feet are physically extremely close to those for the genitals. Some neurologists have suggested that the foot/shoe fetish might come about if the person has some extra close interconnections between these adjacent brain areas.”

Wow. Well that explains Retifism then.