Nude

[Steve Goldstein]

Ben, your lovely model's hair and eyes remind me of Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners. Is she any relation?

[benrains]

Excellent! Others said it best, I agree the face and lighting of the face and hair is really excellent here and draws you in.

Thank you.

Terrific job, Ben!

Thanks!

Loving the tone, the classic gesture and the arrangement, Ben
I only wanna mention the imperfection of the leg cutting. It's just my stand.

Yes, I wish her leg weren't cut there either, but I ran out of space and was pressed up against the opposite wall of my studio. I always wish I had another 1-2 meters.

Beautiful a touch of Voltaire and a touch of Sade. What there is not to love.

It's sort of my take on the early 20th century's take on historical romantic/erotic imagery.

This last image is timeless, such an expressive model, so perfectly illuminated.
Bravo and thank you for sharing!

Thanks. I'm quite happy with the lighting as well.

...well Ben !
what about the apple ?
who munch it ?
...an apple a day keeps the doctor away !

I ate the apple.

Ben, I've followed your work and I think this is your most successful photo.

I like the other one too except the apple is kind of trying to hard to be symbolic.

Oh, the apple's the best part. I'm deliberately going for an over the top, cliche, early 20th century look with these. It's all along the lines of Alfred Cheney Johnston's work and the Pictorialists. Basically, photographers who were stealing ideas from painting styles--which more often than not contains obvious symbolic imagery. That image wouldn't work half as well without the apple casually held in her hand.

1

It's succeeding in being symbolic. That makes the photo so much fun.

Exactly.

Ben, your lovely model's hair and eyes remind me of Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners. Is she any relation?

Absolutely no relation at all to Judith Martin... unless she has distant relatives hiding away in the wilds of Kentucky somewhere.

[jp]

These are really good, symbolism included. I liked even better the feral series in the quarry for the storytelling and creative concept. Quarries are nice places to be photographing too.

[Bill L.]

morgan by Ben Rains, on 500px

Century Studio 10A w/8x10 back
Wollensak Vesta 14"/5
Ilford HP5 Plus / Adonal 1+50

Ben,

Both of these are lovely, but I especially love the eyes and hands in this one. May I ask about the lighting?

Bill

[benrains]

These are really good, symbolism included. I liked even better the feral series in the quarry for the storytelling and creative concept. Quarries are nice places to be photographing too.

Thanks! No LF photos from the quarry shoot though. It was too cold to deal with live models and the slow pace of using a big camera. We've plans to go back once the weather warms up.

Both of these are lovely, but I especially love the eyes and hands in this one. May I ask about the lighting?

It was a very simple setup with a roughly 5x5 ft picture window out of frame to the right. I draped a cheap white nylon shower curtain over it to turn it into a giant soft box (and also useful for privacy.) The fill light is just natural ambient from reflecting off the walls of the room's interior.

[Bill L.]

It was a very simple setup with a roughly 5x5 ft picture window out of frame to the right. I draped a cheap white nylon shower curtain over it to turn it into a giant soft box (and also useful for privacy.) The fill light is just natural ambient from reflecting off the walls of the room's interior.

Thanks! I looked at the close-in photo, and read it in the eye catchlight as a softbox, but the wider photo looked like windowlight. I going to have to give this a try!

Bill

[benrains]

morgan by Ben Rains, on 500px

Century Studio 10A w/8x10 back
Wollensak Velostigmat 12"/4.5 (w/ modified soft-focus adjustment)
Ilford HP5 Plus / Adonal 1+50

[StoneNYC]

morgan by Ben Rains, on 500px

Century Studio 10A w/8x10 back
Wollensak Velostigmat 12"/4.5 (w/ modified soft-focus adjustment)
Ilford HP5 Plus / Adonal 1+50

I love the low contrast, I'm always amazed sometimes at how people are able to get that low contrast look to their images yet somehow it seems still to pop!

[benrains]

I love the low contrast, I'm always amazed sometimes at how people are able to get that low contrast look to their images yet somehow it seems still to pop!

With this one, I think the lower contrast works because the light was very low and even and there's still enough side-light hitting her face that you get some separation of tones. Another factor is the softness from both the shallow depth of field and the soft-focus of the lens. Increasing the contrast would ruin the quietness imparted by the light and the softness. (An overall lighter version might still be ok.)

[lenser]

Ben,

She has a classic look of the late brilliant Lillian Gish. Any chance she might be a descendent?