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Pascal Baetens
Summary:
In this FotoTV autobiography film, Belgian photographer Pascal Baetens gives viewers a special look at his work and heartfelt thoughts about his subjects and methods to his work.
Baetens loves being a photographer it was his dream and now is his passion. He has worn glasses since he was three years old so he always had a special thought and connection to vision and how it affected the way he sees things. Further learning in boarding school taught him to dream, something very useful as a photographer. After taking courses in University studies he set out to become a photographer. Not to makes lots of money but to share his ideas and perspectives with others. He put his heart into becoming a photographer along with a good portion of hard work.
Baetens tells compassionate stories and shares examples of his work where he chooses to photograph humble people instead of showing just a pretty body in his nude work. All his photography has a story to tell a background of deep reflection and real people who pose as his subjects. For example he tells of one of his subjects, Clair, whom he photographed only after visiting a psychiatrist because he didn't want to demoralize his subject. He consulted with the doctor to learn of the special needs and particulars pertaining to his model who had a wrenching story to tell of her tattoo that he photographed on her nude body.
He continually searches for meaning behind his work and what he shares with the world and he searches for riveting ways to communicate his photography as a healing effect and to tell stories of real people going through a difficult time or who have faced other hardships. Baetens further discusses his photography books as a means to express himself and to capture attention.
The Nightmares of Stefan Gesell
Summary:
Talk about your bad dreams? Stefan Gesell is a photo artist whose pictures seem to come from the subconcious.
On his night table you'll find a pad and pencil so if he should awake he can quickly record his visions. These vision will be realized later on the studio set and in Photoshop as a means of working through his visions.
These disturbing nighmarish works are reminiscent of the work of H.R. Giger as might be seen in on of his sets for the Alien quadrilogy. As a balance to this somewhat dark aspect of his work is his work in Glamour and Fashion photography.
We met up recently with Stefan Gesell and here he shares with us a look into his soul as well as his fascinating work.
Three Locations for Nude Photography
Summary:
Photographer Corwin von Kuhwede takes FotoTV viewers on an exciting erotic shooting with his model, Claudia at an abandoned industrial building in Leipzig, Germany.
Today von Kuhwede gives important insight how viewers can find their own interesting motifs in such locations where they initially might think not possible. Going though all disciplines, technical, creative as well as the aspects relating to working with nude models, von Kuhwede accomplishes three different set-ups during difficult weather conditions. The first location that he searches out is on the top floor with open windows letting in the natural light in abundance. He uses a broken window frame as a makeshift swing for model Claudia to swing back and forth on. Von Kuhwede works well with his models always paying attention to body posture and control thereof. It is important for the model to feel comfortable when shooting nude portraits and von Kuhwede does a great job at putting Claudia at ease and taking care of her comfortableness throughout the entire shoot.
Von Kuhwede is also very ingenious when it comes to props and juxtaposing his locations to bring out the best eye-catching contrast. Using ordinary white household curtains hanging down in the run-down industrial building is just one example how von Kuhwede’s mind is always at work creatively. Mixing the old with the new, the modern with the traditional, everything comes together in perfect unison making the sleek erotic photo shooting an instant success. Knowing light and how to modify it also works in von Kuhwede’s favor, whether he uses a reflector or not he is always paying attention to the light and at which angle it is falling onto the model, positioning her accordingly. Von Kuhwede gives an in-depth technical photographic analysis on his choice of camera settings, lenses and post-production photo editing to ensure that viewers can effectively and immediately start out on their own nude portraits. These attentive steps show in the end result, his photos are more than satisfying.
Jean-François Bauret
Summary:
Taking pictures since the early age of twelve, photographer, Jean-Francois Bauret has had a long and stellar career. In this film he sits down for an informative interview with FotoTV to discuss his work and experiences behind the camera.
Bauret shows a stunning collection of timeless images, which capture the emotions, despair and thoughtfulness of his subjects in relation to posing in front of the camera. He was always intrigued with women he found mysterious and for him photography always meant an opportunity for him to connect to people it the most personal of ways. Bauret divulges, “I would like to photograph you nude, does not sound offensive, but saying, I would like to see you nude.--that’s sounds very rude”, he says.
Although Bauret never bothered thinking about what people would say or think about his photography, many of his photos were considered unacceptable, shocking and even scandalous at the time they were produced. However, today his photos are iconic works of art, even some of the more contemporary photographers such as Annie Leibowitz have enjoyed being inspired by some of his famous images, like that of a pregnant woman he photographed in the 60’s, earning him a name as one of the first photographers to do so.
Bauret’s approach to photographing his models is not a studied trick or unique ingredient. On the contrary, he prefers not to direct his subjects, leaving them ample freedom to be themselves and authentic before the camera.
Laura Pannack
Summary:
Laura Pannack, a young British photographer, sits down to discuss her work and several photographic projects focusing on the lives of modern youth today.
Resembling an imperfect social documentary, Pannack’s work is an intimate and captivating look at young people during different stages of their life and the situations and people they encounter. Discussing the details of one of her projects, Pannack talks about spending two weeks, “with friends” in the woods at a youth camp photographing the individual lives of the camp participants. The photos reveal a more subdued look than that of general public stereotypes of crazed teenagers who smoke and drink obsessively, have unlimited premarital sex, and with nothing but incessant thoughts of texting and Nintendo Wii swirling in their heads. Pannack does an excellent job and her photos are quite a striking exhibition of unlikeness and refreshingly honest.
“Young Love” is another compelling project Pannack worked on that brought her very close to her subjects, sometimes forming lasting friendships. Young love is synonymous with the beginning of real hopes of marriage, sex, and commitment, albeit commitment is limited as few high school relationships lead to marriage, but Pannack’s photos acknowledge the youths are just fine living in the moment. Her images succeed in taking the viewers to an extreme level of voyeuristic intimacy, the many intriguing compositions symbolizing adolescent thoughts, dreams, emotions and all the complex feelings that make us human.
Lucien Clergue - Interview
Summary:
Lucien Clergue is the grand seigneur of the French photographic world. Elegant, white haired, sporting a trimmed white beard and rimless glasses, he belongs to the crème de la crème of the cultural establishment there. But this was not always so. As a young photographer wanting to follow his own star he bravely refused offers to work for Paris newspapers and even for Vogue in New York. Later he had to crop the heads off his photographs of nudes to avoid going to prison in the draconian censorship of the 1950’s.
Born 1934 in Arles in the south of France, Julien did photography because there was not enough money for him to go to the to Paris School of Music to continue the music studies that he had begun. Beginning with a Roleiflex he took good pictures, but to make ends meet he worked as well in a factory until he was 27.
Gradually he became well known, meeting and being helped by Picasso at the age of 19. Picasso introduced him to Jean Cocteau, who also helped by writing articles about Clergues’s photographs. Influential friends indeed!
Inspired by the great American photographer Edward Weston, Lucien began taking photographs of nudes, and of sand and seascapes. But differently, with a typically Mediterranean eye, making photographs in magical places, like Point Lobos in Carmel, California.
Clergue says that his work has had three main components: death, life, and the four elements. At first he photographed cemeteries of dead animals!
Nudes, as symbols of life, came after the death pictures. This was because because his friends were so shaken by the images of death that they stopped visiting him. “So”, he summarises with a wink, “I took pictures of nudes to keep my friends”.
H was 22 when he started making photographs of nudes in the sea. They were an immediate success. He illustrated some of Paul Eluard’s poems with them, but the censors were not amused: It was forbidden to show a woman’s sex if her head was also in the picture. So he cut off the heads to avoid going to prison!
Bulls and bullfights are also constant themes in Clergue’s photography. In fact he claims that since he was 22 there hasn’t been a year when he didn’t photograph a nude and a bullfight. The bull fighting images are, as he says, intimate. But this could also be a consequence of being shortsighted: He had to get close to take the pictures!
In a photography festival that he and others initiated (“Rencontres de la Photographie”) he included an international competition for the best book of photographs of the year. In this way he was able to collect thousands of books that now grace the library of the School of Photography in Arles. Not a bad idea…
Julien Clergue is a member of the Académie de Beaux-Arts de L’Institut de France. And he cannot hide his pride in being the first of two members to be elected to Section VIII – Photographie. The other being Yan Arthus-Bertrand.
The academy contributes some of its members to help run the Casa Velasquez, an art school in Madrid which now has photography students. Looking after these is now one of Clergue’s main activities and, he says, a great responsibility.
A central and revealing statement on his work emerges when asked about travelling. “It is not important to me. I photograph what is offered and try to bring my own world and background into it. My world is in me - I carry it around!”
See also the FotoTV Video of Lucien Clergue making nude photographs on the beach.
Don't Take Pictures - Make Pictures
Summary:
The people photographed by Jørgen Brandt treasure forever the photos he makes of them. How does he manage this? Find out in this insightful FotoTV-video.
Based in Copenhagen, Jørgen Brandt is an acclaimed social photographer, a vice president of the Federation of European Professional Photographers and a Qualified European Photographer with Master status (MQEP).
Social photography means for Brandt working with people of all ages, from newborns to the very old. And the secret of making meaningful images of people is never to use traditional poses. "When people come to my studio," says Brandt, "I try to make them play. It's maybe a silly word to use. We're adults, we don't play. But adults are just children, a little bit older."
"If you think about your kids, or maybe your spouse, the way you think of them is not sitting in a nice chair looking at the camera, perhaps with their head on one side." What is important is a particular look in the eye, perhaps teasing, perhaps loving. The photographer's job is to mediate such situations.
The ultimate aim is to photograph people for what they are, not just for how they look!
It's clear in the interview that photography is for Jørgen a passion and a lifestyle. It's about creativity and imagination. Many of his fine art images are abstract. He likens them to the pictures we saw as children, lying on the grass, looking up at the clouds and seeing elephants and sailing ships and things. In contrast to people photos the important thing here is not "what the subject is, but what else it is." Use your imagination and see things your way.
The video is illustrated with numerous images, both of people and of abstract subjects. Some of them, in particular the beautiful maternity photos, are movingly described.
"It takes devotion to make pictures", says Jørgen. And significantly, the words he most often uses are 'love' and 'fun'.
Nude Photography III
Summary:
For the third and final installment of this special three part series, iconic photographer, Greg Gorman, leads a workshop in Zingst, Germany, while discussing and demonstrating natural light portrait and nude photography with FotoTV and workshop participants.
The focal point of Gorman's discussion and demonstration today is natural light settings in low light circumstances for portrait and nude photography. Gorman specifically focuses on camera exposure settings and the analyzing of the model's face. As opposed to the second installment where Gorman uses a strong key light set-up and an edge light to separate the model's face and body from the black background, this time he uses a light somewhat overexposed background, a mixture of light tones and hues to create a soft, ethereal image with clean lines that are always straight and parallel.
Gorman emphasizes his rapport and working relationship with his models while on set and he finds it extremely important to routinely show the model either test Polaroids or images on the camera display so that they have an idea what he is shooting and how they look after the shot is taken. Gorman sculpts with light to render elegant and dramatic portraits and nudes. With the aid of a silver reflector he adds a kick to the overall image, making the photo more dynamic, therefore giving viewers an excellent demonstration of what can be done in fairly simple light.
Most noted for his work in black and white, Gorman shoots color for his workshop series and it is clear why he has been in the business for over four decades photographing for the world's most notable magazine and advertising clients.
Nude Photography II
Summary:
For the second installment of this special three part series, iconic photographer, Greg Gorman, leads a workshop in Zingst, Germany, while discussing portrait and nude photography for the male form with FotoTV.
This time Gorman focuses on the light set-up and his approach to photographing portraits for the male form with the aid of his model-photographer, Mike Lane from Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Using a strong key light set-up and an edge light to separate Mike's body from the background, Gorman aims to create a more dramatic photograph and he does exactly that.
By far, the most important aspect of his work is his working relationship with his models while on set. Gorman finds it extremely important to communicate with his models and to not feel shy when working with them. He directs his male model through the segment with ease, even as he tells his model to suck in his belly, something Gorman finds no problem saying because does it respectfully. It is not necessarily the light that makes Gorman's photographs so intense; rather it is his how he uses the light that makes the picture more interesting.
Throughout the shooting, Gorman makes several exposure adjustments and lighting changes to capture the essence and personality of the model optimally. He also suggests shooting from a slightly lower angle when photographing someone that is not so tall, so to elongate the body.
Most noted for his work in black and white, Gorman shoots color for his workshop series and it is clear why he has been in the business for over four decades photographing for the world's most notable magazine and advertising clients.
Fabio Borquez Nude Photography
Summary:
In this FotoTV film, Argentine, Germany based photographer, Fabio Borquez discusses the method and approach to his work, while treating viewers to an inviting, sensual nude shooting. For this film, Borquez begins the shooting with his make-up artist comprehensively explaining the four steps of make-up and hair application; foundation, eyes, lips and hairstyling respectively. As with most nude or erotic shootings for men's glossy magazines, "smoky eyes" are used to successfully enhance a sexy image.
This technique is widely known by photographers and make-up artists to create a dark and stylized look to contrast with the rest of the image. Furthermore, the make-up artist gives tips and tricks to help make the model's eyes appear visually larger, a trusted method to draw the viewer into the picture.
Borquez recommends working with the model at a comfortable pace, especially when doing nudes. Generally, there is only a short time of introduction between model and photographer, sometimes there is just ten minutes to get to know the model before the shoot begins, therefore Borquez stresses the importance of being respectful and tactful, giving consideration to the model, allowing ample time to feel comfortable once on set. Rushing the model is the furthest thing on Borquez's mind.
Using only two lights for his set-up, Borquez starts with just the main strip-light to show the difference in style and quality before he adds the effect light for the hair, a modified 'rim-light of sorts, which clearly adds more dynamic to the overall photo. Borquez creates his photos with carefully controlled subtlety and the model appears comfortable and at ease, albeit with a striking impression of sensual vividness and detail. Borquez’s nude photography has been exhibited in museums and art galleries worldwide as well as published in renowned men's magazines, such as, GQ and Playboy.