Photoshoot - Rosie

A model I worked with a long time ago has asked me for a glamour styled shoot. Something like you'd see in FHM magazine. She actually wants images that she can send into the lads mags so they can say things like 'whoey whoa whoa, may we photograph you and put you in so many magazines'.

I agreed, but I actually have no idea to shoot or pose someone in that style. I really do prefer a darker, shadowier, interesting, fashion style. Glamour on the other hand, is all bright and no sublety. No cool shadows, no playing with light, no interesting shapes, just girls and their bits presented in the most alluring/seductive manner.

I contacted Rosie who is an established model to help me figure out what the heck glamour is, how to do makeup for it, how to light it and how to direct someone into poses that suit the brief.

The below images are what we came up with. I think it's closeish. Rosie was great. She drove from Ballarat which is so very crazily far in the biggest, loudest doof doof automobile and helped. We sat down and sorted out her makeup by looking through an FHM I got for the occasion and once that was settled we worked on the lighting. We'd shoot a few frames then she'd tell me if we were getting warmer or colder.

Rosie was patient and kind and totally not shy. It really is a pleasure to work with someone like her. In the type of photography I'd like to do and get paid, I'm unlikely to work with someone as comfortable as her though, I'm sure it comes from experience.

She taught me a few poses and facial expressions which should work. I've now got a number of shots of Rosie that I can show this other model to help with her posing.

I think my post processing could still use some work though, or maybe blogger is graining them up or similar. I think I've still got to go heavier on the makeup for these photoshoots.

Feelin' Ugh.

This has hit me in the guts today. I know that sometimes she feels this way but I didn't know she was having such thoughts last night.

I don't believe that our little rockchick would have kids regardless of whichever Dude of Rad she had hooked up with, but the whole marriage thing is quite a different story. It's not the declaration of life-long commitment so much but The One Day All About Her that she feels she might miss out on. I don't imagine at all she'd say no if I asked.

So why don't I? It's not that I don't want her to feel special nor loved. Most days I make sure knows she's fairly adored, and most birthdays and christmasi I usually go above and beyond. It's just that I feel that weddings are a bit silly, a bit old fashioned, antiquated and not really representative of the proposed meaning. I totally don't like that it's a massive industry, a massive stress and a complete distraction from the goals we're both striving for. Given the choice between a 10k wedding or a 10k album launch, 20k wedding or 20k international tour, I have no doubt the actual life goals would be hit first.

Buuuuuut, I also understand this is about emotions, dreams, being completely celebrated by friends and family, not watching your little sister, cousins, previously eternally single friends get hitched, etc. Understanding this basically leaves me with the choice of feeling cruddy for enforcing my wishes upon the person I care about most or feeling hypocritical for instigating something I just don't believe in. Lifelong repurcussions either way.

Dreamteam - Going into Round 8.

I was a bit distraught the last couple of weeks and wasn't able to post about dreamteamness.

My master plan is in tatters, but I've realised inhindsight that it was slightly flawed. Going into Round 12 with 18 trades left means that you completely don't take advantage of cash cows and cheaper than usual superstars. Sure, you go into the finals choc full of tradesready to beat everyone who usually only has a couple left, but ultimately you don't have as much money as they do, which means some superstars aregoing to be somewhat out of your reach.I've used 7 trades so far, and am pretty happy with my team.

I'm currently at the top of my ladder, even though my overall standing has fallen fairly considerably from the start of the season.My supercoach is going well too (I'm participating with dudes at work) and Igot my best and the league's best score last round without any help from Gary Ablett and Chad Cornes.

Back to DT, here are my current stats:
Round 7 Score: 2,152
Weekly Ranking: 116 of 181,124
Overall Score: 12,702
Overall Ranking: 6,652 of 181,124
League Ranking: 1
Rounds Played: 7
Avg Score/Round: 1,815
Team Value: $8,344,900
Change in Value: $894,000

I am at the top of my ladder, but that's only on percentage. Interestingly,the entire Top 8 in the ladder are all on the exact same points and is onlyseperated by percentage. Here are the game results that got me to the top:

Round 4 - LOSS
def by Lovemachines 1735 - 1753

Round 5 - WIN
def Stallions 1607 - 1542

Round 6 - WIN
def The Matt Damons 1740 - 1632

Round 7 - WIN
def Gerrys All Stars 2152 - 1312

As you can see, it's the last game that did it. Unfortunately, Gerry is theonly real easybeat of the league because he's overseas. I'm glad I hit him when I did, but pretty much each person that hits him until a couple of weeks after he gets back to a computer is going to cycle to the top.

Apparently my opponent in Round 8 is throwing our game and not using his trades. I couldn't be happier to hear this as I really want to rack up as many wins as I can to try and ensure my place in the Top 8 early. Apart from Chad Cornes, my team isn't suffering too many injuries or outs.

My forwards have two playing emergencies as does my rucks. I have Geary (StKilda) not doing much but Craig Bird (Sydney) covering that spot. Like everyone else, my backs are in a bit of chaos. Chad is out and Pffieffer (Carlton) may not make it back along with Nathan Brown (Coll) not scoring particularly well. I am actually thinking of making a cash trade this week, trading J Geary for Sam Browne (Carlton). Browne has a break even of -95 which means that even if he plays and gets 1 point he'll go up heaps in cash this round. His average is 75 which is really very good and should play for at least the next month. I'd be looking to make $100,000 from him in that month which Ican then downgrade him to some no name dude and use that spare cashage to upgrade someone in my playing 22. I'm intending to leave that as the only trade made this week, but if Scott Thompson (Roos) doesn't play it means I'm going to cop a 0 in the backline. In that case, I may trade Pffiffiffier (Carlton) to Harry Taylor (Geelong).With Egan (Geelong) out for the rest of the season, Harry Taylor should almost be a sure thing. I could survive with coping a zero, my opponent has Riewoldt who is injured for 4 weeks or so and my score was 300 points higherlast week so I've got some leg room.

Here are my trades so far:

Round 7
OUT Bowden ($389,800) IN Bock ($319,600) OUT Dyson ($243,400) IN Corey ($437,800)

ROUND 6
OUT Hill ($230,700) IN Riewoldt ($167,200) OUT Tuck ($217,300) IN Masten ($152,100)

ROUND 4
OUT Johnson ($376,000) IN Hill ($175,600) OUT Edwards ($83,500) IN Osborne ($285,500)

ROUND 2
OUT Lucas ($384,200) IN Chapman ($445,200)

I am very, very, very glad I picked Chapman instead of J Brown. Lordly. JBrown has been appalling and is now only $300,000. Chapman hasn't beengreat, but none of the forwards really have been. Every week I nearly traded out Brad Johnson and only now am I glad I didn't. Everyone is now jumping on his bandwagon and even though he is still injured, his last score shows promise. The only one I might regret was Steve Johnson, but that trade did allow meto pick up Hill and fix up my woeful backline. I also made heaps of moneyon Hill and traded him out before he had yet another shocking week.Bowden was another one I was struggling with for weeks, and I feel like Imade the right decision. Once I decided to get rid of him, I had a very,very tough decision to choose either Bock (Adelaide) or Bradshaw (Brisbane) and then upgrade Dyson (Ess) to either J Corey or Gary Ablett (both from Geelong). I fluked it good because Bock got 114 and Bradshaw got 34. Corey got 112 and Ablett got 0. Booyeah!I'm still unsure whether Jack Riewoldt (Richmond) was the best decision, but he still might be... only time will tell.

In other news, I just realised I've been wearing the dry cleaning tag attached to my business shirt all day. I am the smarts.

Update : Also traded in Garrick Ibbotson (Fremantle) for Darren Pffifffifffiffer (Carlton). All that stuff about Harry Taylor (Geelong) I mentioned above? I forgot it all when I was trading. Ibbotson should be cool though, he's playing in the Centre rather than the backline so that can only help his scores. I've put Kane Cornes as Captain. Since then (and now it's too late to change the teams) I read that Kane will be tagging Sam Mitchell but will also be tagged by Brad Sewell, which means he'll have two opposing players on him the entire game. Ouch.

Wednesday Whingin'

Still at level Gripin', but I'm definitely working on it.

Today's complaining is about peeps. More specifically it's about peeps who tell angry stories. In the conversational pie-chart, angry stories definitely have their place. It's a good way to vent and share your experiences. What I'm finding is doing my head in are those people who are playing their own part with increased venom. I don't mind audiencing up someone's ventation, but when, as your audience I'm getting verbally spat at and hit with a battering ram of negativity then I'm affronted, and pretty much be hatin' to the same level them as the actual mortal enemy they be talking about.

Angry peeps with angry stories should pretty much get themselves The Internet and take it out on hump day. Yeah, that's where it's at.

Have a good week.

Photoshoot - Priscilla

Pricilla is a lovely, lovely girl, but man this was a hard shoot. Firstly, 10pm the night before the shoot she wanted to reschedule, which I was able to do by moving some stuff around, then she had a car accident right near my house. Her car was pretty crashed and I did a massive cool job of duct taping it back together, but we didn't shoot that day. We shot later in the week and she was a good two hours late and actually one of the hardest people I've had to shoot.

I quite liked her and we got along quite well, but professionally, she was quite difficult. She had these massively huge breasts, that's right, massively huge that she was really quite self conscious of and didn't really want in the shots. The breastal area is really quite central to a young lady's image and so the task at hand was tricky. Everyone I've shot so far I've contacted through modelling websites. Eventually when I am Full Of Awesome As Photographer I'll be lending my services for a small fee to the general public, and Priscilla was a very good example of the problems I'm likely to face.

I'd love to say that I thought outside the box and came up with photographic gold, but to be honest, her restrictions somewhat defeated me. I still ended up with 251 shots, which Priscilla culled to 150. We actually sat together and deleted the shots, which killed me, I'm a hoarder of photos, but there really is no point in having shots the model cringes at.

I honestly don't really like many of the shots and struggled to find some for this post. I went a bit bolder with the makeup, and I think it worked okay. She has a great smile which is pretty easy to work with.

One thing we did try was to max out all the lights. It totally overblows everything, which in turn, smooths out the skin. It gives it a slight orange tinge, but could well be something to play with more later.

Wednesday Whingin'

Why hello there.

Now that I'm officially 30 years old as recognised by the International Federation of Aging I feel that it's totally justified of me to have a bit of a complain every now and then. I'm currently at status Griper and will be looking to advance through the stages until I reach my utimate goal of Crotchety. It's bold, I realise, but I think I'm up for it.

Future gripes may include such characters as; the youth of today, work peeps and general citizenry.

Today's gripin' is titled : The Youth of Today That Sit Right Next To Me Not Quite 50cms Away At Work.

Dear Bec,

I know that this is your first ever job, but here is a list of things that are a bit dodge. You can tell everyone thinks they are a bit dodge by the way everyone kinda always says 'dude that is a bit dodge.'

1.) Donuts, chocolate and Coke every morning for breakfast is gross. You're a little bit huge.
2.) You're a two pack a day potato chip eater. That's some loud muthachunking snackage.
3.) You = Worst work ethic ever. You can't be serious.
4.) Yelling into your mobile at your Mum is disruptive and disrespectful.
5.) Hoping your work will go away if you complain about it doesn't quite gel with mankind.
6.) Neither does sighing loudly.
7.) Getting angry if your work takes you past 5:00pm isn't the usual Climb Corporate Ladder.
8.) You're actually a bit of a slob.
9.) Working 3 months in a row is tough, only 45 years to go.
10.) Other people actually do exist.
11.) A sulky voice really shouldn't be someone's entire method of communication.
12.) Going from 0 to Blaming Of Others in 0.009 seconds is actually not a great longterm strategy.

Photoshoot - Elise

Elise was absolutely great to work with, oh my lord. I actually dilberately organised a semi-professional model to help me out with posing and various lighting techniques and Elise made things really easy. I've really noticed that the more I get along with the model and the more I find their personality attractive the better the actual images come out. I was really happy with the different lighting styles we were able to develop and the overall look to the images. These images haven't been photoshopped or colour corrected or anything. I did the makeup for this shoot and the only thing I'd change would be that I didn't do the makeup heavy enough for photographic. It hardly looks like she has any makeup at all on. I find this tricky because in the makeup area the light is great and makes everything look okay, but under the studio lights it all gets lost. Practise, onwards and upwards.