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View Full Version : Beauty Portraits: SiSi @ Reflection Rooms (Sexiness From Within!)

Zeckson
Oct-04-2009, 11:27 AM
I got to know this extremely beautiful and sexy girl from a close friend of mine some time ago. Her name is SiSi. Yes, it sounds like a Chinese name. In fact, it is a Chinese name. Sisi is a mix between Thai and Chinese. As we talked, I came to realize that SiSi is modelling too and she was looking for a good photographer to give her some nice and cool images. When I told her I do portraits and showed my port folio to her, she looked at me and gave me that big sexy smile... Well... You know what comes next!

For some days we were together and we were talking about concepts and ideas, I sort of understood SiSi's character a bit. I was observing her body languages, her expressions, her little actions and her way of speech all the while as I communicated with her about what I had in mind. She accepted it with grace.

We talked about what is sexy and how sexiness is perceived by people. While sexiness often links with revealing of individual's sexuality, which most people do agree, I think that is only 50% correct. What many people don't know is that sexiness often comes from within an individual's personality and character and the way each individual present themselves. My idea for SiSi's shoot was to bring out the charm and sexiness within her joyful character WITHOUT being in pieces of cloths that only cover a small part of the body (you know what).

I did this set of images with my Nikon D80, my AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G lens and a few flash units. I must say that while I am very satisfied with the outcome of the images and how each image was excuted and processed to obtain this result, I am very pissed with the quality of these images technically. Can you guess what I am pissed with?

Total: 25 images


Pic 01:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/ce8a0faa.jpg

Pic 02:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/eb7722b8.jpg

Pic 03:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/ccfbe262.jpg

Pic 04:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/6724694d.jpg

Pic 05:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/d1a253cf.jpg

Pic 06:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/56d516d7.jpg

Pic 07:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/885a6cf5.jpg

Pic 08:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/2d8d142e.jpg

Pic 09:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/493b00d9.jpg

Pic 10:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/c80eac00.jpg

Pic 11:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/0de5637f.jpg

Pic 12:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/d963c3da.jpg

Pic 13:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/630bb2e4.jpg

Pic 14:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/52f45b20.jpg

Pic 15:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/23cbc5c4.jpg

Pic 16:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/508ecd52.jpg

Pic 17:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/390261af.jpg

Pic 18:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/7587a7b8.jpg

Pic 19:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/2853bf30.jpg

Pic 20:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/af2b0701.jpg

Pic 21:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/77eb5cd1.jpg

Pic 22:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/3f886a99.jpg

Pic 23:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/4c2e56eb.jpg

Pic 24:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/9b0fe18c.jpg

Pic 25:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/Zeckson/20090830%20-%20SiSi%20at%20Reflection%20Rooms/84ce005c.jpg

Thank you for viewing my images. Sexiness from within, I hope that these images do SiSi justice. I have many people asking me how I do my portraits. Some even revealed their line of equipments they use but still could not achieve what I did with my mediocre gears.

I replied them, "What I do portraits, I often look into the inner character of my subject, understand them and observing them before I attempt any shoot with them. I go out with them, I talk with them on the phone, I have meals with them, I share their life stories, I listen to their views and opinions. From these, I piece every small bits of information I gather about them and review these information and figure out what kind of person they are. This will set my direction of how to bring their characters out in my portraits."

Speaking of ART is USELESS if one cannot FEEL anything.

You may have the best and fastest car in the world but it is your driving skills that propels you to win the race in the circuit. :)
B Rock
Oct-04-2009, 11:48 AM
Wow I love these. What kind of lightsetup did you use?
Zeckson
Oct-04-2009, 11:59 AM
Wow I love these. What kind of lightsetup did you use?

It depends on the need of each individual images. I have used bare flash units, flash through umbrella, light bulbs, table lamps, and whatever I can find within the surrounding. I look for light source. :)

As for gears, I had stated them on my first post. :)

Thank you for your comments.
Zeckson
Oct-04-2009, 12:07 PM
Apologize for putting my images into individual posts. I understand you have to scroll down the pages just to see all my images. I apologize for the incoveniences caused.

I will post all my images into 1 single post in the future.

Meanwhile, you can click on my Flickr to see all 36 images of this set. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zeckson/sets/72157622390725331/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/zeckson/sets/72157622390725331/)
dmeiselman
Oct-04-2009, 01:37 PM
Gorgeous set, I bet she's very happy with them.

As for critique, I see no detail in blacks and blown highlights all over the place. I know that high contrast style is an artistic choice, but i'd rather see some detail in her dress/surroundings/hair highlights.

Really creative work, keep it up!
Zeckson
Oct-04-2009, 01:42 PM
Gorgeous set, I bet she's very happy with them.

As for critique, I see no detail in blacks and blown highlights all over the place. I know that high contrast style is an artistic choice, but i'd rather see some detail in her dress/surroundings/hair highlights.

Really creative work, keep it up!

Thank you for your comments. :)
Qarik
Oct-05-2009, 10:00 AM
Thank you for your comments. :)

lovely shots and great processing. You mentioned that you were not pleased with somthing. Perhaps you are upset becasue you did not get a kiss as payment? :clap
Zeckson
Oct-05-2009, 12:14 PM
lovely shots and great processing. You mentioned that you were not pleased with somthing. Perhaps you are upset becasue you did not get a kiss as payment? :clap

Ha ha ha ha. No... Not that, my friend. Something else. Look closely at the images. You will notice it if you have a sharp eye. Thanks for your comments. :)
Qarik
Oct-05-2009, 12:55 PM
Ha ha ha ha. No... Not that, my friend. Something else. Look closely at the images. You will notice it if you have a sharp eye. Thanks for your comments. :)

you shot in jpg instead of RAW? You ISO was set to high?

By the way..D80 + plus kit lens? seesh...that's making the most out of your equipment.
Zeckson
Oct-05-2009, 09:21 PM
you shot in jpg instead of RAW? You ISO was set to high?

By the way..D80 + plus kit lens? seesh...that's making the most out of your equipment.

EXACTLY! Its posterization my friend! I should have shot these in RAW! But I didn't know what made me shot these in JPEG under sRGB color space. Worse, the way I process the pictures to get this feel, I worked around the lower edge of the gamut. Intense manipulation of the pixels brought up noise and posterization! Argh!
Joe Dukovac
Oct-06-2009, 07:12 AM
Hey Zeck,

EXACTLY! Its posterization my friend! I should have shot these in RAW! But I didn't know what made me shot these in JPEG under sRGB color space. Worse, the way I process the pictures to get this feel, I worked around the lower edge of the gamut. Intense manipulation of the pixels brought up noise and posterization! Argh!

First off, OUTSTANDING work! I can only hope to be able to achieve this level or work one day. It goes to show that no matter what kind of equipment you have, you can achieve wonderful results. Actually, if anyone reads any of Ken Rockwell's posts (www.kenrockwell.com), he has a post that talks about why expensive equipment doesn't matter in order to capture a great photo.

Anyhow, I just wanted to comment about the posterization and noise. We, and by "we" I mean you as an individual, are always our worst critiques. I pick apart my work senselessly and almost obsesively all the time. In the meantime, others are marveled by the work which was done. I would love to know what SiSi's reaction was when you showed her the photos? I suppose in the end though, a joyful reaction to our work is what makes us feel good about our work and propels us to carry on and improve, at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :wink

Again, wonderful work Zeck, it's always a treat to see your work on here. It's truly inspirational to me.
Zeckson
Oct-06-2009, 11:45 PM
Hey Zeck,



First off, OUTSTANDING work! I can only hope to be able to achieve this level or work one day. It goes to show that no matter what kind of equipment you have, you can achieve wonderful results. Actually, if anyone reads any of Ken Rockwell's posts (www.kenrockwell.com) (http://www.kenrockwell.com)), he has a post that talks about why expensive equipment doesn't matter in order to capture a great photo.

Anyhow, I just wanted to comment about the posterization and noise. We, and by "we" I mean you as an individual, are always our worst critiques. I pick apart my work senselessly and almost obsesively all the time. In the meantime, others are marveled by the work which was done. I would love to know what SiSi's reaction was when you showed her the photos? I suppose in the end though, a joyful reaction to our work is what makes us feel good about our work and propels us to carry on and improve, at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :wink

Again, wonderful work Zeck, it's always a treat to see your work on here. It's truly inspirational to me.

Thanks for your kind words. SiSi loved the photos! She didn't care about the posterization and noise. I guess it is still acceptable... :p