how to pose nude
Sep. 10th, 2006 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Had today off.
I began by getting up at the crack of dawn to go to roller derby practice. I skated like a fiend and only had to stop twice to remove my skates, count my toes to make sure I still had them, and put my skates back on. We took no breaks, but did constant pace-line drills: arms' length behind one another, at cruising speed, around and around. One drill was the girl in front taking off to catch up to the end of the line while the rest of us maintained speed; for that one we lined up from slower to faster, so that as faster and faster girls were in front (as the originally-first girls raced to catch up to the back), the line's pace gradually increased. If a girl was unable to keep up she was supposed to break off and skate in the center of the rink. One girl decided instead to hang on the outer wall, and when it was my turn, I had to swerve to avoid her, and wound up falling on my ass.
Fortunately I landed more on the fleshy part of my hip/thigh, so I wasn't hurt, and I spun around on landing and got right up and still caught the end of the line. But I was very annoyed that I was required to do penetential situps, and have resolved that in future if someone makes me fall, especially if they're the ones being idiots, I will not make any particular effort to avoid taking them down with me. Fuck that, stupidity should get you bruises.
The next drill was more difficult: the girl at the back had to get to the front of the line by weaving around the entire line, going from right to left between each of the other girls. We were allowed to skate more like two arms' lengths apart, but it was very difficult, as we did not pause between drills, and so my feet were numb. i wouldn't mind not being able to feel my toes, but I am clumsy enough, and when I cannot feel my feet, I have real trouble keeping my pace. To make matters worse, the girl immediately in front of me was flagging badly, and yet too proud to split off to the center, and so she kept speeding up furiously to catch the girl in front of her, but then slowing down. So I had to constantly adjust my speed in order to maintain distance. Meanwhile people were zipping by behind me and in front of me. One girl clipped the back of one of my skates, but fortunately I was just taking my weight off it, and so did not stumble, and she is far more experienced so she did not fall either.
No one without pads was allowed to participate, but fortunately there were no major falls. We all dreaded the "worm" drill (weaving in and out), but it was far less disastrous than we'd anticipated. It was exhausting, however: the drills where the first or last girl races around are more interesting to watch, and at least divert you. During the Worm you cannot see any action, and so have more freedom to notice the agony of your thighs. We also had been skating at cruising speed for an hour by the end of it, and it was very difficult by then to perform the constant speed adjustments needed. I have trouble getting a whole stroke in, and have to do a lot of sculling, where you fan your feet in and out rather than pushing off with one then the other-- that takes less motion and so is less dangerous when people are very close to you, but yields less result than a good firm push.
Two funny things about how I skate: One, I am very strongly right-footed and it takes a great deal of concentration for me to take a full stroke with my left foot. Two, when I was a rank beginner, I mostly gained momentum by pushing off with my right toe stop-- ice or roller skating. I now am so fast that a push with my toe stop does not speed me up, and yet in reflex I will still try to do it, and wind up nearly tripping myself. That really used to be the only way I could gain speed: by pushing off repeatedly. I guess i really am faster now. The good speed skates help.
But now, my butt hurts a whole lot, and my thighs. I imagine I'll be sore most of the week. After nearly an hour and a half of skating without a pause, we took our skates off and did low lunges all the way across the skating rink, and that left me nearly unable to walk. Then one of the girls who is a yoga instructor gave us a good cool-down stretching session, which was rendered hilarious by our various noises of relief bordering on ecstasy as muscles that had begun to spasm got stretched out. "Sounds like a porno," someone commented.
I think I've finally chosen a derby name. It wasn't even on the poll, but it's grown on me:
B-17, after the WWII bombers, the Flying Fortresses. (Also known as the Queen of Bombers.) They were mostly used for the daylight precision raids on industrial targets, flown by Americans based in England, although they saw service in a number of other theatres as well. They were largely famous because they were sturdy, and often made it back to their home bases with large portions of the fuselage, wings, and even tailpiece shot off. I'm hoping using the name will put a kind of positive spin on how fucking clumsy I am.
I got home and Z suggested going out to brunch, so we went to Betty's down on Virginia St. Betty's is great because they're sort of hippie-granoly, but the food is good, so even meat lovers can have an entirely vegan meal and not even really notice that it's healthy. I had mushrooms benedict, while Z had a breakfast casserole. I flat-out inhaled the thing, and was quite satisfied, but of course I was hungry again in an hour because I'd been so hungry to start with.
After that we came home and decided to hit the Apple store. I've been considering buying a laptop for three or four years now. I decided on what I wanted. Z meanwhile brought his laptop in: it sometimes shuts down spontaneously, and that's very irritating. The Genius was baffled, so we shot the shit with him a while, and he reset the power management thing on the battery and shrugged a bit. It's under warranty, so if it keeps misbehaving we can send it in-- but we ought to back it up. While he was checking if Z had registered the computer, he got a funny look on his face, and asked Z, "Do you own an Xserve RAID?"
"Oh yes," Z said. "We have a bitchin' home network."
"Really?"
"No," Z admitted. "It's for work." (The RAID array in question is an approximately $8,000 piece of equipment. It has about four terabytes of storage, I think. That would be one hell of a home network!
My iMac is giving me constant warning messages that my startup disk is almost full. I realize this, but have already deleted everything I'm comfortable deleting.
So I asked a salesperson for the computer of my choice. They didn't have what I wanted in stock. She tried to talk me into something else. I decided to just order it off the website. I do not need a DVD burner. I have one in the iMac, which I am not giving up; I haven't burned a DVD in three years, but I accept that perhaps I might want to. I also have one in Z's computer.
I am not getting a computer with an 80 GB hard drive. I have had over 75 GB of files for two years now and am sick to fucking death of constantly choosing what to get rid of. The saleslady tried to talk me into an external hard drive. "But I have a backup server," I said. "I don't want to segregate my files into what I want now and what I only sometimes want."
"This one's kind of portable," she said.
"A laptop with a larger hard drive would be more portable," I pointed out. I know exactly what I want. I am not settling for what she thinks I might want. I am getting this to do work on the bus. I am not going to lug around a fucking backup drive, or have only half my files with me at any given time, and just hope I don't need the ones I don't have.
So I'm getting a Macbook with an upgraded 120GB drive. I'll fill it in less than a year, I wager, but at least I won't think, "You know, I could've gotten a bigger one to begin with. D'oh!"
I'm also getting a 60 GB iPod because why the fuck not? It was half-price with the laptop. I could've gotten a 1GB Nano for free, but I think it would only make me cry every time I tried to use it. 1 GB is nothing. I have playlists over 1 GB. Fuggit.
My old iPod tried to boot up today, but crashed immediately and resumed its unending clicking-and-showing-the-black-apple-logo thing. I guess it's really dead. Anyone want one to dissect?
I should be getting my L00t in about 10-12 days. Nnngh! Oh well, I'll live.
The afternoon was spent in a short nap followed by movies. We went to Mondo Video's new location in the university district last night, and rented two movies. The first was a Turkish remake of Star Wars, which was sort of the cinematic equivalent of a techno remix mashup of Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, and Flash Gordon. It was great, but the DVD had errors, and so it crapped out before we could see the end. I don't know how it ends, but when it crapped out, the hero had melted the golden brain and the spiky sword into a pair of gold gloves and boots, and was jumping on trampolines to leap over the heads of the furry red wookies and mummies with bear claws. I imagine he gets to save the world and gets the speechless pouting blonde girl, but I'm not sure.
This afternoon we watched the other movie, which was a slightly fictionalized documentary re-enactment of Bettie Page's life. It was moderately interesting, especially the scenes where they recreated lost bondage movies Bettie is known to have shot.
More interesting, to me, was the accompanying feature movie "How To Pose Nude" with narration by noted pinup photographer Bunny Yeager. She is offscreen throughout, but conducts an interview with the model cast as Bettie in the feature film, and then there is video footage of several photo shoots with Bunny photographing Paige (the model), and talking her through poses.
These are all things I gathered from watching the photo shoots and listening to her nag the model, rather than direct bits of advice from her, for the most part.
Start photo shoots off with the poses least likely to muss up the model. For example, on a beach, do all your standing poses first, so that she is not covered in sand. Do everything you can think of dry before you let her get wet. And so on.
If you stand with your ankles together, that is the foundation for a number of flattering poses. Bending one knee flatters the legs. In general a flexed limb looks more graceful than one with a locked joint.
Be aware of all aspects of the body's position. For example, when posing the elbows, do not hide the bust. Do not hide the face unintentionally. Do not let hair hide breasts. Don't hide hair behind shoulders. Don't tuck hair behind ears: ears aren't particularly sexy. Be aware of where everything is, and make sure it is all displayed to best advantage.
Constantly fix hair, makeup, costumes: an awkward hair tangle or unflattering drape will ruin a shot.
Likewise, be aware of lighting. Be conscious of unflattering shadows. For example, in direct overhead light, keep the chin up, because otherwise the eyebrow ridges will cast shadows that look like dark circles under the eyes. Do not pose with the face or bust completely in shadow, unless it is completely intentional.
When a pose is nearly perfect, don't be afraid to dismantle it entirely to re-pose to get it just right. Be fluid and unafraid to move, to keep from being too static.
Keep the back arched, suck stomach in, keep limbs bent, keep head angled: be aware of details of poses to keep model from looking flat and uninterested.
i also observed that very dark hair photographs better in black-and-white. Black and white doesn't flatter blondes particularly. Contrast comes across more strikingly.
I might write a novel about a porn star, webcam girl, or pinup one of these days.
I began by getting up at the crack of dawn to go to roller derby practice. I skated like a fiend and only had to stop twice to remove my skates, count my toes to make sure I still had them, and put my skates back on. We took no breaks, but did constant pace-line drills: arms' length behind one another, at cruising speed, around and around. One drill was the girl in front taking off to catch up to the end of the line while the rest of us maintained speed; for that one we lined up from slower to faster, so that as faster and faster girls were in front (as the originally-first girls raced to catch up to the back), the line's pace gradually increased. If a girl was unable to keep up she was supposed to break off and skate in the center of the rink. One girl decided instead to hang on the outer wall, and when it was my turn, I had to swerve to avoid her, and wound up falling on my ass.
Fortunately I landed more on the fleshy part of my hip/thigh, so I wasn't hurt, and I spun around on landing and got right up and still caught the end of the line. But I was very annoyed that I was required to do penetential situps, and have resolved that in future if someone makes me fall, especially if they're the ones being idiots, I will not make any particular effort to avoid taking them down with me. Fuck that, stupidity should get you bruises.
The next drill was more difficult: the girl at the back had to get to the front of the line by weaving around the entire line, going from right to left between each of the other girls. We were allowed to skate more like two arms' lengths apart, but it was very difficult, as we did not pause between drills, and so my feet were numb. i wouldn't mind not being able to feel my toes, but I am clumsy enough, and when I cannot feel my feet, I have real trouble keeping my pace. To make matters worse, the girl immediately in front of me was flagging badly, and yet too proud to split off to the center, and so she kept speeding up furiously to catch the girl in front of her, but then slowing down. So I had to constantly adjust my speed in order to maintain distance. Meanwhile people were zipping by behind me and in front of me. One girl clipped the back of one of my skates, but fortunately I was just taking my weight off it, and so did not stumble, and she is far more experienced so she did not fall either.
No one without pads was allowed to participate, but fortunately there were no major falls. We all dreaded the "worm" drill (weaving in and out), but it was far less disastrous than we'd anticipated. It was exhausting, however: the drills where the first or last girl races around are more interesting to watch, and at least divert you. During the Worm you cannot see any action, and so have more freedom to notice the agony of your thighs. We also had been skating at cruising speed for an hour by the end of it, and it was very difficult by then to perform the constant speed adjustments needed. I have trouble getting a whole stroke in, and have to do a lot of sculling, where you fan your feet in and out rather than pushing off with one then the other-- that takes less motion and so is less dangerous when people are very close to you, but yields less result than a good firm push.
Two funny things about how I skate: One, I am very strongly right-footed and it takes a great deal of concentration for me to take a full stroke with my left foot. Two, when I was a rank beginner, I mostly gained momentum by pushing off with my right toe stop-- ice or roller skating. I now am so fast that a push with my toe stop does not speed me up, and yet in reflex I will still try to do it, and wind up nearly tripping myself. That really used to be the only way I could gain speed: by pushing off repeatedly. I guess i really am faster now. The good speed skates help.
But now, my butt hurts a whole lot, and my thighs. I imagine I'll be sore most of the week. After nearly an hour and a half of skating without a pause, we took our skates off and did low lunges all the way across the skating rink, and that left me nearly unable to walk. Then one of the girls who is a yoga instructor gave us a good cool-down stretching session, which was rendered hilarious by our various noises of relief bordering on ecstasy as muscles that had begun to spasm got stretched out. "Sounds like a porno," someone commented.
I think I've finally chosen a derby name. It wasn't even on the poll, but it's grown on me:
B-17, after the WWII bombers, the Flying Fortresses. (Also known as the Queen of Bombers.) They were mostly used for the daylight precision raids on industrial targets, flown by Americans based in England, although they saw service in a number of other theatres as well. They were largely famous because they were sturdy, and often made it back to their home bases with large portions of the fuselage, wings, and even tailpiece shot off. I'm hoping using the name will put a kind of positive spin on how fucking clumsy I am.
I got home and Z suggested going out to brunch, so we went to Betty's down on Virginia St. Betty's is great because they're sort of hippie-granoly, but the food is good, so even meat lovers can have an entirely vegan meal and not even really notice that it's healthy. I had mushrooms benedict, while Z had a breakfast casserole. I flat-out inhaled the thing, and was quite satisfied, but of course I was hungry again in an hour because I'd been so hungry to start with.
After that we came home and decided to hit the Apple store. I've been considering buying a laptop for three or four years now. I decided on what I wanted. Z meanwhile brought his laptop in: it sometimes shuts down spontaneously, and that's very irritating. The Genius was baffled, so we shot the shit with him a while, and he reset the power management thing on the battery and shrugged a bit. It's under warranty, so if it keeps misbehaving we can send it in-- but we ought to back it up. While he was checking if Z had registered the computer, he got a funny look on his face, and asked Z, "Do you own an Xserve RAID?"
"Oh yes," Z said. "We have a bitchin' home network."
"Really?"
"No," Z admitted. "It's for work." (The RAID array in question is an approximately $8,000 piece of equipment. It has about four terabytes of storage, I think. That would be one hell of a home network!
My iMac is giving me constant warning messages that my startup disk is almost full. I realize this, but have already deleted everything I'm comfortable deleting.
So I asked a salesperson for the computer of my choice. They didn't have what I wanted in stock. She tried to talk me into something else. I decided to just order it off the website. I do not need a DVD burner. I have one in the iMac, which I am not giving up; I haven't burned a DVD in three years, but I accept that perhaps I might want to. I also have one in Z's computer.
I am not getting a computer with an 80 GB hard drive. I have had over 75 GB of files for two years now and am sick to fucking death of constantly choosing what to get rid of. The saleslady tried to talk me into an external hard drive. "But I have a backup server," I said. "I don't want to segregate my files into what I want now and what I only sometimes want."
"This one's kind of portable," she said.
"A laptop with a larger hard drive would be more portable," I pointed out. I know exactly what I want. I am not settling for what she thinks I might want. I am getting this to do work on the bus. I am not going to lug around a fucking backup drive, or have only half my files with me at any given time, and just hope I don't need the ones I don't have.
So I'm getting a Macbook with an upgraded 120GB drive. I'll fill it in less than a year, I wager, but at least I won't think, "You know, I could've gotten a bigger one to begin with. D'oh!"
I'm also getting a 60 GB iPod because why the fuck not? It was half-price with the laptop. I could've gotten a 1GB Nano for free, but I think it would only make me cry every time I tried to use it. 1 GB is nothing. I have playlists over 1 GB. Fuggit.
My old iPod tried to boot up today, but crashed immediately and resumed its unending clicking-and-showing-the-black-apple-logo thing. I guess it's really dead. Anyone want one to dissect?
I should be getting my L00t in about 10-12 days. Nnngh! Oh well, I'll live.
The afternoon was spent in a short nap followed by movies. We went to Mondo Video's new location in the university district last night, and rented two movies. The first was a Turkish remake of Star Wars, which was sort of the cinematic equivalent of a techno remix mashup of Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, and Flash Gordon. It was great, but the DVD had errors, and so it crapped out before we could see the end. I don't know how it ends, but when it crapped out, the hero had melted the golden brain and the spiky sword into a pair of gold gloves and boots, and was jumping on trampolines to leap over the heads of the furry red wookies and mummies with bear claws. I imagine he gets to save the world and gets the speechless pouting blonde girl, but I'm not sure.
This afternoon we watched the other movie, which was a slightly fictionalized documentary re-enactment of Bettie Page's life. It was moderately interesting, especially the scenes where they recreated lost bondage movies Bettie is known to have shot.
More interesting, to me, was the accompanying feature movie "How To Pose Nude" with narration by noted pinup photographer Bunny Yeager. She is offscreen throughout, but conducts an interview with the model cast as Bettie in the feature film, and then there is video footage of several photo shoots with Bunny photographing Paige (the model), and talking her through poses.
These are all things I gathered from watching the photo shoots and listening to her nag the model, rather than direct bits of advice from her, for the most part.
Start photo shoots off with the poses least likely to muss up the model. For example, on a beach, do all your standing poses first, so that she is not covered in sand. Do everything you can think of dry before you let her get wet. And so on.
If you stand with your ankles together, that is the foundation for a number of flattering poses. Bending one knee flatters the legs. In general a flexed limb looks more graceful than one with a locked joint.
Be aware of all aspects of the body's position. For example, when posing the elbows, do not hide the bust. Do not hide the face unintentionally. Do not let hair hide breasts. Don't hide hair behind shoulders. Don't tuck hair behind ears: ears aren't particularly sexy. Be aware of where everything is, and make sure it is all displayed to best advantage.
Constantly fix hair, makeup, costumes: an awkward hair tangle or unflattering drape will ruin a shot.
Likewise, be aware of lighting. Be conscious of unflattering shadows. For example, in direct overhead light, keep the chin up, because otherwise the eyebrow ridges will cast shadows that look like dark circles under the eyes. Do not pose with the face or bust completely in shadow, unless it is completely intentional.
When a pose is nearly perfect, don't be afraid to dismantle it entirely to re-pose to get it just right. Be fluid and unafraid to move, to keep from being too static.
Keep the back arched, suck stomach in, keep limbs bent, keep head angled: be aware of details of poses to keep model from looking flat and uninterested.
i also observed that very dark hair photographs better in black-and-white. Black and white doesn't flatter blondes particularly. Contrast comes across more strikingly.
I might write a novel about a porn star, webcam girl, or pinup one of these days.
