Mate Choice Copying

I met Rich at the university judo club when I was 18. He was a couple of years older than me and he was a very tall, skinny computer geek with a terrible haircut and equally terrible glasses. I don’t think he’ll be too upset with me if I say that he was unappealing to women at that time, although he had plenty of female friends. He was so shy that I had to ask him out (I have a thing for tall, skinny hyper-intelligent geeks with glasses), and he wore a hideous white suit that will forever be immortalised in my memory (O.K. he’ll never forgive me for outing that one!) He was very quiet and sweet.

After we started dating he didn’t suddenly have an image makeover (I’m not in the habit of changing my boyfriends’ appearance, although I did give him some conditioner), but suddenly he became incredibly appealing to women, including his pretty female best friend who had, up until then, completely ignored the fact that he was interested in her. Although she was dating someone else, she suddenly changed her tune, and decided that she wanted him instead, as did most of the other females in the judo club. Women have (on and off) hurled themselves at him ever since. The addition of a wedding ring, several years later, only made matters worse.

We thought that this was a bizarre phenomenon. Now, a new study has confirmed this. Dr Ben Jones at the University of Aberdeen has published a study that proved that women are more likely to be attracted to those men that other women find attractive. This is called “mate choice copying”, and appears widely in nature. Female birds, for example (finches, not women!) mate with males like the males they have seen other females paired with. Now it seems that humans are no different.

Jones asked a panel of women to rate male photos for attractiveness. He then picked two of the photos of different men that the women agreed were equally attractive, and displayed them side by side. The women again agreed the two men were equally attractive. He then inserted a third photo of a beautiful girl looking admiringly at the guy in the left hand photo. Suddenly the panel of women decided that the guy in the left photo was significantly more attractive, and when a panel of men were invited to look at the display, the men displayed open dislike for the guy in the left-hand photo.

This will probably not be news to any of you. Men usually do feel resentful of another guy who appears to be popular with women, simply because it is male nature to be in competition with each other for access to women.

Of course, most of you male photographers out there have constant access to beautiful nude women, which will no doubt result in envy and resentment by your average Joe Bloggs in the street, who can’t understand how you get away with it.
But the interesting thing is that if you do surround yourself with beautiful women (who actually look at you), then you will be a highly desirable Sex God in the eyes of other women.

Not that you care of course, because you’re only interested in the Art, right?!




Cheeky Lee, in one of my favourite images from her shoot.

Posting by proxy

I'm knackered.

I've done 70 hours work in the last seven days.

Here are some beautiful boobies.

Enjoy !




Lynx, of course.

Disclaimer of opinion

“A disclaimer of opinion is issued when the auditor is unable to form an opinion as to whether the financial statements are fairly presented or the auditor is not independent.”

Opinions are tricky things, especially when viewed on a popular blog.

Most blogs are run by one person. Therefore, in as far as you can judge personality via a blog, what you see is what you get. You can form an opinion about the personality of the photographer or model both by the mood and feel of the images portrayed, and also by the writing style and content.

One of the side-effects of running a joint blog is that people either forget there are two people posting, or even if they do remember, they often assume (quite naturally) that my opinions and Rich’s opinions are the same.

This is simply not true.

Quite often we have completely opposite opinions about something, as well as utterly different tastes in photography. Often we discuss some aspect of photography which may inspire a post, and we may agree, beg to differ, or call each other total idiots and argue wildly for hours on end (much to the annoyance of the kids). Because Art is by its nature subjective, neither of us can be objective or truly independent. But we do both do try to be fair.

Since freedom of speech still reigns supreme in this household (albeit not in this country any more), either of us can publish and be damned. And often we are. Judging by some posts on other blogs, some of my writing in the past has caused a few ripples here and there. This is excellent news for me, because part of the reason I post is to stimulate opinion. Unfortunately this also leads to folks assuming this is Rich’s opinion too, attributing motives to his work which don’t actually exist.

For example, Rich and I have very different opinions on the recent plagiarism arguments, which have been doing the rounds on many of the blogs. I tend to have a more inflexible view on plagiarism because I have a lot of experience in intellectual property law, and I am responsible for protecting and pursuing the trademarks in our (day-job) company. So I tend to get a bit snotty about it, although I do try to be fair (I don’t always succeed though!). Rich has a much more balanced view, which I believe he will be posting shortly.

So, to summarise, what you read is not the consensus opinion of Fluffytek.
Rich and I may be partners, but we are very different.
Luckily, we can tolerate and respect each other’s thoughts and opinions, even if we are on the same blog.




The amazingly beautiful and flexible Roswell Ivory.
If I tried this pose at my age, I’d end up in hospital. Ah youth, wherefore art thou?

It’s all in the label

According to a survey in the national press this month, when a woman meets a man, the first thing she looks at will be his eyes, followed by his derrière and groin area. This reaction is instinctive, and happens in a split second. It is beyond the woman’s ability to control this, and she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it. From personal experience, to that list I would also add, “ His watch”.

At some point during the first time you meet a guy, you do tend to take in his smile, the way his hips curve into his ass, and his…er…bulge. Very instinctive. It’s true. Goes back to the stone age (at least that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). Men have the same kind of reaction when they meet a woman, so the research goes, only they look at a woman’s breasts first, before the face (which explains a lot, in my case)

However it’s also true that most women judge the initial attractiveness of a potentional mate by his perceived image and status. This is largely measured by his appearance, but not in the obvious way you think. The clothes are relatively unimportant. Personally I automatically steer clear of men dripping in flashy designer clothes. Scruffy guys can still be worthy mates, because they have inner intelligence, and there’s also the shabby chic argument. Likewise with the shoes. Many men wear trainers all the time, so you can’t really tell, but the status and success of a man can often be judged by his watch.

Each watch tells the time as well as all other watches, so how much you pay makes no difference to its functionality. But still people fall for the clever marketing. Nothing says “I’m a rich successful male and a worthy mate” as well as a designer watch. A watch isn’t just a clock nowadays, it’s a conduit of information that tells us about the man who is wearing it.

It works, believe me.
If you wanna boost your image or pull the chix, get a designer watch. Nothing says “I am a rich successful guy, come shag me” as much as a watch. Combine that with a big camera, and pow, you’re a rich successful photographer who is obviously extremely successful, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to afford the expensive watch or camera in the first place. It doesn’t really matter to the woman if the camera is actually expensive, as long as it’s big (unless of course she knows a bit about cameras, whereupon she’ll probably be more interested in your camera label than watch, and it will therefore be a match made in heaven, so grab her quick and never, ever let her go)

So how do you choose the right watch ? You’d better do your homework carefully because the watch you wear reflects your personality.

A low-budget Seiko/Seconda kinetic watch is worn by a reliable, ethical ecology-loving guy, who is caring, considerate, but not necessarily aggressive or phenomenally successful. A Rolex is worn by rich outdoor guys who are athletic, whilst being fairly flashy and obvious. A Patek Philippe is not a watch – it is a heirloom to pass on to your son, thus making you ideal husband material (because it shows you want sons). A Tag Heuer says you are the sporty successful type, who is incredibly elegant with impeccable taste, subtle as well as highly intelligent. A Breitling is the epitome of manliness, it suggests that you are a mega-successful photographer, and when you aren’t photographing a gorgeous semi-clad model for the latest Harpers and Queen spread, you’re off piloting a light plane in the Sahara desert.

I’m not making this up. This stuff really works.
Ask my father-in-law (fake Breitling. The women love him)

About 15 years ago, in those days when we still had money (and no kids) I bought Rich a Tag Heuer. Since then, his attractiveness to women increases measurably when he wears his watch. It can be quite funny to observe. We have had quite a few women who have suddenly…er…..increased their level of friendliness towards him after catching a glimpse of his wrist. And I include several models in this too.

I’m as guilty of this as the next woman. I’m not normally drawn to men by appearance (personality, personality, personality), but even I can fall for this trick. Last year, a photographer came for tea, very nice looking, penetrating eyes, nice derrière, but after I caught a glimpse of that Vintage Rolex. Well, say no more, ladies. Part of me thought “Ooh, he’s obviously VERY successful. I’d like to shoot with him” (purely for artistic purposes, you understand). And those penetrating eyes stayed with me for a while afterwards too.

Of course this is fairly gross coming from a 40 year old married woman. But you see my point?

Shallow isn’t it?
Such things shouldn’t matter.
People shouldn’t be judged by the labels they wear.
But they are.

This is why I love nude photography so much. If you strip off the clothes, shoes and watch, then the shedding of the outer layers reveals the truth underneath.

No labels. No pretending. Just the flesh and soul of the real person.




Sirensong. Beautiful in both flesh and soul.

Principles

Do you remember the movie Indecent Proposal ?
A husband and wife bought their dream home together, with the assistance of a huge mortgage. When recession hit, they stood to lose everything they owned, so they went to Vegas to have one shot at winning the money, but lost it all. A millionaire (played by Robert Redford) offered them a million dollars for a night with the wife.
So the wife (Demi Moore) abandoned her principles for the sake of getting out of debt, and of course it all went horribly wrong, and the marriage fell apart.

Moral of the story: Principles are more important than money.

So the theory goes anyway.

Twenty years ago, I used to be a woman of principles, an ardent feminist who certainly would never dream of allowing a stranger to tie her up (for the sake of art, or any other reason). Geez, I was so much against the oppression of women (and the oppression of anything really) that I refused to carry a handbag because I felt it was a symbol of oppression. I was also a morally upright supporter of Greenpeace, a vegetarian (of course), anti-fur, anti-animal testing, utopian loving, and the most politically stuck-up and correct liberalist you would find anywhere.

How on earth then did I end up being a 40 year old nude model, who allows strange guys to tie her up and photograph her ? Nowadays, I carry a handbag, I eat meat, support animal testing (for anti-aging and medical research) and I can tell you quite truthfully that I’d sleep with practically anyone for a million dollars (which would pay off my mortgage and finance my kids’ education very nicely thank you). Please note that if Robert Redford were doing the asking, I would almost certainly sleep with him for free (at least in his younger days).

So what the hell happened to my principles ?

It would be easy to blame it on my career. The problem with a background in law and accountancy is that you wake up and smell the coffee pretty damn quick. People lie about everything. The principles they tell you they have, are not their true inner-principles. People are defined by their actions, not words. You learn not to trust what people are telling you via mouth. The eyes are much more reliable at telling the truth – they are the window to the soul, as you photographers will know.

It would also be easy to blame it on my partner. Richard is the most intelligent man I have met. He is also breathtakingly honest. He never lies or cheats. And I mean NEVER. He sees straight through any principles you say you have, and questions the honest intentions behind it. It is quite exhausting living with someone like this, not to mention upsetting. Rich’s principle of “ Don’t ask a question if you don’t want a straight answer" (e.g. “Am I too old for studio nude modelling ?”) caused a few humdingers, I can tell you.

But the truth, the reason I ended up where I am today, is due to TIME.
Over time, I learned to see things less in black and white, and more in shades of grey. There are no straight answers to anything. Everything could be the opposite of what it appears, an illusion.

There are many problems with principles (if indeed, such things really exist). Being a lawyer, I know that you can argue white is the new black, and you can get away with it too. I have done it myself many times. It’s just technique.

Photography too is about making white seem to be the new black. As with life, a photographic image is not what it seems. You see whatever the photographer wants you to see, which may be genuine, or it may be an illusion. Is the woman tied to the bed actually pleasuring herself, or is she just faking it for money ? Does the fact that she is faking it for money make it any less principled ? She chooses her own limits, and she has her own price.

All principles have a price, and you can choose to change or compromise your old moral judgement, depending on whether you get a more attractive offer.

Also, you define how you see and judge something by your subjective reaction to it. In effect, you choose your own limits, and what you perceive as right and wrong.

Is that feminist really a feminist, or does she actually go home from work at night, and then do all the housework whilst her husband puts his feet up and watches t.v. in his own special “head of the household” chair, before he goes down the pub and she has to stay at home and look after the kids ? Every single damned night. What happened to that feminist I knew and loved ? No I’m not talking about me here. I’m talking about a friend of mine, who was once the most passionate feminist I ever knew and admired. What the hell happened ?

Life happened, as it happens to us all.
Principles are like Photoshop. They can change the original raw image to portray something completely different. You can choose different principles at any time, depending on how you judge the illusion of the photograph.

If all this seems unbearably depressing, just remember, you are the sum of your choices.

All principles can be bought. The question is, what is your price?



Kate, the upside down shot.

London

Saturday was a long day. An hour and a half on the train to London, quarter of an hour on the tube, and finally we were at the National Portrait Gallery.

The first stop was the coffee shop for some refreshments, where on the walls hung a series of portraits by Bassano taken around 1935. These were stunning. Not for the photographic technique, which was excellent (half plate glass negatives), but for the depth of character and feeling captured in the photographs. They really blew me away and they were in the coffee shop! Wow I though, this is going to be a real treat.

There were several exhibitions running. The “Face of Fashion”, which was our primary reason to visit, “The Photographic Portrait Prize” and others, but none of them came close to those few portraits by Bassano taken around 70 years ago.

The Face of Fashion was a large exhibit which gave an opportunity to see some photographs that we had previously see in the likes of POP magazine up close and very, vary, large. Some of the larger photographs (6’ high) were as impressive for their detail as their composition. It is worth visiting, especially if you haven’t already seen the work of these photographers.

The Photographic Portrait Prize has some interesting photographs but ultimately the ones I thought were the best were not those that won, but then, there is no accounting for taste.

All in all there were some outstanding photographs, but the thing that struck me was that some of the others appeared to be bad, boring or both. I guess that different photographs speak to different people in different ways.

Maybe the real test is not whether people love a photograph of Kate Moss in the gallery, but whether people are still looking at it in 70 years and wondering what she was thinking when the photograph was taken, and what was her life like.

I find that for me, the most powerful photographs are those that don’t have tricks, or gimmicks, are not extravagant or clever, but contain a face, captured with depth and feeling and that reach both into the heart of the subject and into the hearts of the viewer and make that connection. This is ultimately where I wish to go with my photography.

But I digress. After the gallery we went for Coffee Cake and Kink. Well, the coffee and cake bit anyway as the Coffee shop/gallery contains many items of an adult nature on display and we had the kids with us, so we sat outside and Lin and I took turns to go look at their basement gallery. The staff were very friendly and the place was cosy. A nice place to visit and the only pace I have found “A” magazine on sale. Fortunately it was a very mild day and we were quite warm sitting at the pavement tables.

After that we went to Covent Garden so the kids could see the street artists and I took a couple of snaps. Finally we went to the British museum to look at the mummies, isn’t it funny how kids like that sort of thing? Then we started home again.

The photograph for this post is neither female, or nude, but is one of the snaps I took at Covent Garden. I hope you don’t mind.

A long-awaited day off

It’s been a shitty week here in Toyland (I’ve been exposed to too many Noddy videos). Too much work again, leading to grumpy old men (see previous post) who really need to take a break and chill (And our sincerest apologies to anyone thinking of getting married. We really do love weddings! Honestly)

So I’m dragging him forcibly out of the door all the way to London tomorrow, to the opening weekend of the Face of Fashion Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Should be fun (three kids notwithstanding) and hopefully it will inspire us both, as well as giving him a break. At the very least I’ll get to see Kate Moss without any makeup, looking old, which will either make me feel better or depress me totally (probably the latter).

I’m also hoping to pay a fleeting visit to Coffee Cake and Kink - the UK's only kinky gallery café although God only knows what I’m going to do with the kids whilst we’re in there. Maybe we can take it in turns to sneak in, and I can bring them cakes and juice on the pavement, or something.

Brilliant concept though……two of my favourite loves in life, cakes and fetish photography. Genius marketing concept. Wish I could set up something like that here in Norfolk, but we’d be burnt at the stake by the locals on our opening night.

Will report back on the exhibition in due course.

In the meantime, I’m spending the evening trying to persuade him to hide a nude in his software during beta testing. If the user clicks on a certain sequence of buttons somewhere in the user interface, he’ll find a gorgeous nude young woman appear mysteriously before his eyes (definitely NOT going to be a picture of me, I said “gorgeous” and “young”, remember). I figure that this will be a great incentive to get our customers beta testing the software.
It'll drive ‘em crazy !
Plus it’ll get our software nicely tested too.



Feline Infektious, from last year.

Wedding photography

Did you know that more marriages break up over finance than anything else?
Forget infidelity, finance is the big killer. Yet more and more young people finance their weddings with a big loan for that one-off day. All in the name of romance. The average wedding in the UK now costs £17,000 and the majority of that usually goes on credit.

What has this to do with photography? Well a good portion of the budget goes to the Wedding Photographer. Those are the professionals that make a living out of giving the happy couple a collection of pretty pictures with which to remember their day, and they do so at quite a nice price too, charging anything from £750 to £7500. The average price for a basic wedding photography package in the UK is around £1800.
A lot of work goes into wedding photography, and it's not easy, hence the expense. Wedding photographers work hard for their money.

But I can't help but wonder, when the couple are stressed out and finding things tight trying to pay the bills, if they feel that that little album of images is really worth all the financial heartache?

I’m afraid I'm cynical about the wedding industry in general. It has too much to do with commercialism and nothing to do with spontaneity and the real emotion between two people. What worries me is that modern media imposes too many expectations of the “perfect day” which results in major stress and financial hardship, all in the name of the perceived perfect wedding dream.

When Lin and I got married, we were young and broke. Our wedding cost practically nothing and a friend took the photos. In retrospect it would have been nice if he had done a better job as they are not that good and are wonky. But it meant more because he was a friend, and at least we have never had to complain about the cost. When push comes to shove, they are only pictures; the real value after all this time is the memory of being together and laughing at how young we looked.

This is a photo of Claire Louisa in her wedding dress, taken shortly after her wedding. She mentioned at the shoot just how expensive and stressful her wedding was. I wonder if she now feels all that money was worth it?

Am I a 40 year old Internet Whore ?

What does fine-art nude modelling have to do with sex ? We were all born nude after all. So what is it about nude modelling that tempts fine-art nude models to call their work porn ?

Yes, once again we are in the endless argument of “Is fine art-nude porn ?” Which I have posted on before. But now I want to consider it from the model’s point of view.

Consider the stunning Iona Lynn who has set up a blog called Integrated Internet Whoredom . Now I really love Iona’s work. Beautiful empowering images, of the Art Nude genre mostly, which have nothing to do with sex, porn or even posing provocatively. So why refer to whoredom ?

Perhaps I have no sense of humour. Yes, it's irony. Yes, it’s only a label, but to me, this will attract men looking for only sex, rather than repel them.

I’ve looked at many nude models’ portfolios, and some of their self descriptions just don’t fit their modelling style. Why refer to oneself as a sex worker or whore, just because the image is of a naked woman ? Just because you model fine-art nude doesn’t mean you are doing it to give viewers a sexual kick (although some guys do, no doubt; but to look at fine-art nude images for sexual kicks alone must be the most boring and non-sexually gratifying past-time known to mankind)

From a modelling point of view, surely giving yourself these labels is just pandering to men leering at you and finding you sexually attractive ? Playing the system ? What about other people (both men and women) who are looking at the images for Art rather than sex ?

I know well–respected fine-art nude photographers such as Marcus Ranum often call their work fine-art porn, in order to head off criticism that they are just shooting porn. If you call your work porn, then you are “up front” about what you do. I’m a pornographer, so anything I do shouldn’t surprise you. It’s kind of like saying “publish and be damned” or “expect the worst from me, and then you can’t label me or my images as being more depraved”. It’s giving the witty finger to those members of the general public who find nude photography outside their comfort zone.

I grow weary of this art-nude vs porn debate. In one respect, who gives a shit about labels as long as the images are beautiful, sexually or otherwise ? It’s all Art. Why does the motive of the viewer matter ? Do you actually care who sees (or buys) your images or how they judge you?

Well, in theory it matters depending on what market you want to reach. Labels of this nature may send the wrong message, and might possibly put off potential Art Galleries and Fine-Art magazines from featuring you. (I am thus assuming that you’d like to be featured in art-nude galleries and magazines, which might not be the case). On the other hand, it might attract magazines with a more sexual content, which might be more up your street.

From a nude internet model’s point of view, I guess the questions you have to ask yourself are:

1) Do you care about what happens to your images ?
2) Do you care about who sees your images and how they judge you ?
3) What are your career aspirations with regard to nude photography ?
4) What sort of market are you aiming for ?

Note I am speaking from the point of view as an ex-studio-fine-art nude model, who is contemplating which modelling direction to go in. Kind of like Candy’s Slippery Slope

Sexual posing sure is a lot more fun, and it makes more money (not to be trivialised). But if I pose sexually, and I have no control over what happens to my images, or how they are taken, before I know it I’ll be in “40+ UK Slapper Magazine” and crying myself to sleep every night.

So which market to choose ? How DO you choose ?

If I am in a studio, kneeling modestly on the floor, legs closed, staring off into space, the lighting falling in subtle ways so as to hide genitalia, then my B+W image would be classified fine-art nude. Brighten the lighting a bit, switch to colour, open your legs wide and put your hand between your legs (which takes about 10 seconds) and its instant porn.

Wham. I’m a 40 year old internet whore.



Rich wouldn't let me publish the image I had in mind for this post (on the grounds of good taste) so you'll have to make do with this one instead.

Blurring the Edges

Thanks to Richard’s new sooper-dooper version of software, we rarely receive any spam any more. But one did sneak through this morning (Tsk, tsk Rich!), which was entitled rather aptly:

“Blogging can become a new kind of fiction where a writer completely inhabits a character”

Folks, is this us ? Do all of us (models especially) who run photo-blogs actually create a separate fictional character which we use in our little internet photography world ?

Assuming that you are not doing this for a living, do photographers and models inhabit a slightly different persona in their online photography world, far removed from how they are in real “normal” personal life with their partner and kids ?

Is this persona real ? A different facet of their personality which they can’t express in everyday life ? If so, isn’t this persona (which is used to make pictures which are ART) an art-form in itself ? After all, acting is generally considered to be a form of art.

With regard to modelling, from my own experience, I have to say that acting is definitely required in modelling. The best images (IMO) are those where the model engages with the photographer, and acting is often (but not always) required. When Rich is asking me to pose, and says “Imagine you are doing something really rude” or more recently “Show me some love Baby”, after I have collapsed in a heap laughing, I actually do try to put some effort into acting up for the pose.

Note to potential models: Rich does NOT say this to other models!
I believe such comments are only directed at me, his partner. However, when a shoot is on, judging by the usual peels of laughter from the model in the studio, I wonder what he does say to them. His photography persona is definitely “Mr Fluffy” (this is his nickname given to him by models on MM. It seems to have stuck). He always was a natural charmer with women, as are most of you photographers out there, or so I suspect.

Personally I think Rich is becoming more and more Mr Fluffy outside photography.
From my own point of view, as I get more and more into modelling, the L-von-B character also does tend to creep into the real world. Only yesterday, for example, I caught myself telling my (very Christian and strait-laced) close friend that I had been given a red latex cat suit for my 40th. What was even more surprising was that she actually seemed to like the idea and demanded to see the pictures (there’s hope for those yummy-mummys yet!)

I guess our fictional online characters are starting to creep out into the real world.
The edges of our real vs. photography personas are becoming blurred.
The “real me” is starting to become L-von-B.

You’ll know I’ve completely lost it when I do the school run in the red latex cat suit. The kids assure me that although they love me very much, I am dead meat if I EVER do this. Whatever "dead meat" means, it doesn't sound pleasant.



The dancer Kate from Rich's first ever proper nude shoot last year.

Photographic Plagiarism

Plagiarism isn’t just about copying literary ideas. It applies to copying ideas via any artistic medium.

You can’t copyright an artistic idea or concept.

This means that photographers and models nick each other’s ideas all of the time.

This is incredibly upsetting for many photographers, although many seem to be resigned to it.
Indeed, the illustrious Pretty Girl Shooter has previously commented on his blog that “There's Nothing New: It's All Been Done Before”

I have spoken to several photographers whose images have been more-or-less exactly copied, and I mean EXACTLY. The mood the lighting, the pose. The photographers concerned were pretty pissed about it, I can tell you, and with good reason.
This lead to such bitterness with one photographer, that it resulted in depression and actually put him off shooting at all in the future.

Bloggers in particular have to be careful about sharing ideas for future shoots. Once upon a time, Rich had an unusual idea for a semi-nude shoot and made the mistake of mentioning it fairly specifically on the blog. Two days later, another photographer proudly posted images of the same idea on his web site, exactly the same concept and outfit, with the same lighting that Rich had talked about. So that rendered Rich’s shoot dead in the water. If he had gone ahead, it would have looked like he was copying the other photographer’s idea. And of course, Rich was far too polite to rant about it on the blog.

About six months ago I did an outdoor shoot, with a specific bondage-type pose and scene, and two weeks later I found exactly the same image and pose on another blog. Even down to the fact that the model was covered in mud and tied up in the same way.
Plagiarism ? Or just the model/photographer thinking “Hey, that’s a great idea. Let’s try that!”
Of course the other image on the other blog was done better, and looked more beautiful…the model concerned was young, pert and pretty, after all. Poor Rich had to put up with me shrieking, “They stole my idea! Don’t these people have any bloody imagination?!” for half an hour!

Photographic plagiarism extends even to writing. Just last week, I was checking up on another photographer which we know fairly well, and he has "improved" the wording on his port by ripping off the wording on our web site, plus he has almost exactly copied another of Rich’s shoots! Grrr!!!

After musing on this for a while, we have decided to “chalk it up to experience”.

For one, copying another pose, lighting or photographic idea is the highest form of compliment. It says “Hey I like your work. I can really learn from this and I’d like to try this too. You’ve inspired me”.
After all, how do photographers learn? By copying other photographer’s work of course. Copying lighting, poses etc, in order to learn a specific technique. I have often learned specific poses by copying another model’s pose or outfit, so I’m as guilty of plagiarism as the next person.

On the other hand, the whole plagiarism issue means that now we keep our ideas for future shoots to ourselves, and out of the blog, at least until the shoot is over and the images are finished and published.

This is kind of sad really. I’m not a big fan of secrecy.

But let’s end this on an optimistic note. Let’s just conclude this by judging Photographic Plagiarism as simply another learning tool, and the highest form of compliment! A tribute to another photographer’s art, if you like.

My first no-show!

I’m not going to name names but I’ve had my first no-show.

Lin spent a long time trying to sort out this model, many MM emails exchanged, more than any other model so far, and everything seemed fine for this afternoons shoot.

I was supposed to pick her up from the station in just over an hour so I thought I’d call and make sure that she knew which station to get off at and what I’d be wearing so she could identify me.

Apparently, she can’t make it today because she didn’t get up in time to get to the train and she had been trying to find out how to contact me. I guess some students at university are not as bright as you might think because I guess the MM account for Lin and I wasn’t an option, neither were the TWO telephone numbers or the real email addresses we sent her - TWICE. It’s not as if we are difficult to get hold of.

To stand us up one hour before the shoot and to not have even tried to tell us is completely unacceptable. This is one model that will never see the inside of my studio.

The thing is I’m not unreasonable. I had a model turn up 30 hours late and was happy to shoot her because she kept me informed of the problems with travel and I was happy to oblige. But if I had not called this girl before setting off for the station I would have been sat in my car like an idiot waiting for this girl who couldn’t be assed to tell me she wasn’t coming.

If you are a model and are reading this, please remember that if you can’t make an appointment then phone as soon as you know and cancel it, it makes you look a hell of a lot better than being a no show.

This is a photo Roswell Ivory. Roswell was on time and a wonderful model. I dont know if she had to bend over backwards to get here, but she certainly did after arriving. I hope to be shooting her again later this year.

Screen calibration night of hell

So my old monitor was a Compaq TFT8030 and I used it for all my photo editing. It had a 300:1 contrast ration and 250cd/m2 brightness. That translates to not a very good monitor for viewing or editing pictures. I did have it calibrated though so I still found that prints were reasonable close to the viewed image.

However, I wanted a better display that more accurately displayed the colour range of my images and after having take a hunt round I settled on the Samsung SyncMaster 244T. Top of the range stuff and a pressie from Lin for having bust a gut on the software.

It arrived yesterday, and so started an evening of hell trying to calibrate it.

I plugged it in, booted the PC and connected the calibration tool. Went through all the calibration process and then opened up a picture on the Web. Very nice. I opened one of my photos in Photoshop. AAARRRRGGGGGG. The colour was all wrong. The only way it would look right was to enable proofing or discard the profiles. Also, IE looked a little odd.

Obviously the profile was out, which can happen with a new monitor. So I profiled it again. Same results.

I then did this dance about 5 times without ever getting nearer a solution. So I went to bed, and had bad dreams about having bought a pile of cr*p.

This morning I went to the Samsung website and looked up the monitor information. It has a feature called MagicColor which is supposed to help make the colour look very good. I read a little further and found that the MagicColor facility makes all of the colours more vibrant and works dynamically depending on what the image is displaying, thus making woodland scenes more green and skin more natural. So here we have the culprit, a monitor that thinks it’s so smart it dynamically changes the colour profile being used depending on the image. Wonderful.

Solution, turn the damn MagiColor off and recalibrate. And that folks was it. I now have a fully calibrated spot on monitor and the images I see on screen match perfect the images I print. Colour Workflow Profile Heaven!!

To go with this post is a colour image of Lynx which of course you won’t get the true benefit of unless you too have a calibrated monitor.

Consumption

It all started in Tesco this morning (For all you US readers, Tesco is the UK equivalent of Walmart) after I dropped my son off at school.
Tesco had their new spring clothes collection with £5 off kids clothes if you spent £25, so I had just loaded up the trolley with all the latest shapeless, unstylish Chinese imports in varying shades of pink (because the 2 yr old daughter will only wear pink), and I had enough for my voucher off, and then I had one of those moments. You know what I mean, one of THOSE moments. The “what the hell am I doing here?” moments.

I felt physically nauseous, the daughter was screaming blue murder in the throes of an ear-splitting tantrum about heaven-only-knows-what, and (not for the first or last time) I hated Tesco and all other supermarkets with every fibre of my being.

There are four big supermarket companies in the UK. They count for 85% of all food in the UK, and are rapidly killing off every other small shop in most rural areas. One in every ten pounds in the UK is spent in Tesco. Most people buy their clothes and dirt-cheap electrical goods from either Tesco or one of the big department stores, and all of these omnipotent companies get most of their non-food supplies from cheap labour in China and/or India/Taiwan etc.

I could write you endless political and social essays on cheap foreign imports and how much western society relies on them. The information on this could fill an entire blog of its own. My poor boys often have to put up with me ranting on about poor exploited starving Chinese workers. But still I buy cheap imported products. Despite my conscience, like 99.9% of every other person in the UK, I have no choice. Our dear beloved Government has taxed us into extinction. We have to buy cheap food and Chinese clothes and electrical items, because that is all we can afford. And frankly, there isn’t any other cost-effective option. Ebay is an option for cheap and fashionable clothing, but then you just end up buying second-hand, recycled Chinese imports. Or, as the fashion industry loves to call it, “vintage” Chinese. I’m not sure if that makes it more green or socially acceptable, and it makes my head spin just to think about the morality of vintage Chinese.

I had thought that the photography world was exempt from the creep of cheap foreign imports, but Rich just blew my bubble by telling me about Holga, the cheap imported Chinese medium format camera. As with most cheap imports, the quality is apparently somewhat lacking, and Rich has entertained me with stories of how the apparently unpredictable results from a Holga are sometimes classified as Art. But because it is medium format, it is therefore automatically more prestigious, so it must be Art.

And my favourite love of the moment, the world of latex fashion, is also rife with the Chinese-import disease. Cheap, affordable, but absolutely dreadful quality to wear. Not authentic latex, but the uncomfortable and thick Chinese alternative which came from a recycled Chinese tyre and smells like it, and which gives you a rash in places you rather wouldn’t have one.

Is it possible to only source goods from your own country ? The answer is definitely yes, for food, but as for clothes and electrical goods, it would be nigh-impossible, if only on the grounds of cost.

What makes things worse is that all this debt-fuelled consumption, this bloated twisted desire in our modern society to buy, buy, buy, get a bigger car, fancier clothes, the next model plasma screen t.v., the next whizzy model of digital camera, just results in screwing us up, so that we confuse what we want with what we truly need. Because we always feel that our lives should be better, and because of our underlying fear of being labelled a failure, we resort to consumption, thus medicating our unhappiness with spending power. And the more we consume, the more the Chinese (and other countries supplying cheap imports) serve to feed our greed.

I have to believe there is a way out of this. I have to believe at some point, decades from now, Western Society may reach a point where its culture suffers from the existential angst about consumption that only a rich society can indulge in.

And then things may change.
But don’t hold your breath.

Sorry about the rant folks. So much for the yummy mummy makeover. I really blew it, didn’t I ?

Moral of the story: Support your country’s economy. For UK readers, that means buy British latex. Not as cheap, but the quality speaks for itself. And no nasty rashes either.



And talking of pretty girls in Latex, here's Roswell Ivory again, in a gorgeous picture which adorns the wall of our office !