Human Figure class

I had the chance to attend a workshop on photographing the human nude about a week ago, and I'm so glad I was able to go.  I may have studied photography in school but since I didn't go the route of professional photographer I need to remember to constantly make the effort to improve my skills. 
 I haven't done much of human figure/nude photography before, it's quite intimidating to have a naked person stand in front of you, waiting for you to give direction.  Luckily most of the models at the workshop had the experience I didn't; one was a dancer, one looked like she had done plenty of modeling before, and one who just was having so much fun with the whole process it made my job easier.  In the end, I thought the dancer was almost too easy to shoot because all of her poses were beautiful, and reduced the challenge.


I have to say, a room full of nude female models sure brought out the dirty old man in many participants of the workshop.  There was at least one rather rude gentleman (I use the term loosely) who bossed the rest of us and kind of ordered the models around.  The rudest of all was the equipment salesman at the workshop (from the sponsoring company.)  He had brought lenses for people to try, and was so kind as to "help" me with the equipment (in that "Let me help you there, little lady" way), insulted my camera as an antique, and let me know the perfect lens to use in case I wanted to you know, zoom in on a nipple.  The cherry on top was when he  proceeded to make a few remarks when the model was on the ground reclining, and I also lay on the ground to shoot her from a low angle - about how we were both now rolling around on the ground.  Uh-huh...and you're a professional salesman?


Using studio lights is always a treat for me these days, as I don't have access (or pay for access) to a regular studio.  After this weekend though, I'm thinking quite seriously about investing in a kit of my own, because it's just so much fun to use!  And I have a garage now, so some limited room to actually just use them at home.  On the whole I had a great time at the workshop - I learned a bit and came away with lots of inspiration, which is exactly what I wanted!


For the full portfolio, click the photo above, or follow this link - and remember, this was NUDE human figure so don't click if you're not ok with it!

http://www.stanford.edu/~cheungd/HumanFigure/

Honey Badgers just KILL their problems....hmmm...

For good times, honey badgers make it Suntory time.

Everyone needs more honey badger!  Mine (can I pick honey badger as my spirit animal?) always seems so cheerful and sunny.

It has been that kind of week...er....month.  There's all the fun parts of Halloween and house and outside life, but work life has been a little on the bad side.  Insomnia and bad dreams kind of bad with optional heart palpitations when the boss texts and calls me while I'm out of the office.  And I'm not the only one!  I weirdly felt a lot better when someone else at the office said she felt the same way.


So while I'm slowly and surely becoming an alcoholic in terms of frequency of drinking if not quantity, I guess I should try to remember to chill.  That is, chill after savagely tearing apart any metaphorical cobras in my way.  

**Oh no!  I just scrolled through old entries and the last stressed out honey badger one is only 4 entries down! :(  Better do something about that.

Living/Dining room before and after!

Hi Dad! also...blue and yellow next to each other!?

After a long break, I'm back to blogging. What have I been up to for the last 5 months? There's been a lot of working on the house. I fell into the trap of "I can't put up pictures of this before and after until the after is really done!" and as I have been discovering (all you people who have already done a lot of house-things, whether you own or not, are laughing at me) is that things are never DONE. And I fell further into the writer's trap of "I can't post anything until I get that first house blog done). Dang. That was a deep tiger pit of a trap. Anyhow! Here is my first official post about stuff I'm doing to the house because now I'm a homeowner and inflict that kind of thing on ever. PAINT! When I moved in, the house was pretty awful awful colors. I maintain that the previous owner certainly had STRONG sense of color, but I don't think he perceived color at all in the same way I do. Plus, the dining room drywall was a little destroyed due to some termite smiting.

Clearly, there was going to be a lot of repainting (i.e. the whole house.)  It was just so...not restful.  As much as I like Cal and Cal colors, it's not something I want in my dining room.

Thus I pulled a Tom Sawyer and desperately tried to convince all my friends that painting is SO MUCH FUN, and to come over and help me in return for beer, sandwiches, and pretzels.  Clearly this was a thin and sketchy offer on the fun angle, but after a few days of work my living room become much more soothing!

Granted, some of this is just that much more soothing because the mess is gone! It didn't take five months to do this painting, but it was only this last weekend where I was able to get curtains and was hence able to call this room "done".  Curtains are freaking expensive!  I did pull a crazy Asian girl homeowner thing though, and when I found a set of discontinued curtains on MEGA SALE, for the living room, I went back to two different locations to find enough matching and on sale curtains for the bedrooms.  Maybe it involved forcibly grabbing the display curtains while no one was looking a bit of work to find enough for a matching set but hey, DISCOUNTED!! and MATCHING! (boring boring white.  but the white is working for me.)

Whew, all right.  Now I feel like I can continue blogging like a normal person again, and not just about the house.  But stay tuned for more about the house. :)