I’ve shot nudes outside before. Some of the first pictures I ever took way back in 2004 were outdoor nudes in the Northwoods. I’ve done topless shoots on the beaches of Lake Mendota on more than one occasion. Last year I even shot some full nudes in Elver park right here in Madison.
But I’ve never done any like the shoot a few weeks ago.
I picked her up at 5:30 A.M. We drove up to the Capital square, parked and walked to the steps. There were a few homeless guys sleeping on some grates, but not many other people around. She was only wearing her shoes, socks and a coat. We walked up the steps, she dropped her coat and I started shooting.
We stopped a few times and she put her coat back on or ducked down when buses or cars would stop at the light.
It started to get busy so then we went out to the UW Arboretum. My original idea was to have her climb the tree in the image below, but it was too high.
We walked a little along the trail to get further from the road, which was starting to get busier with joggers and bicyclists. Right along the edge of the woods there was a pair of turkeys. As we started through the other side of the field a beautiful golden sunlight began to show.
I think this was one of the most productive shoots I’ve done in a very long time. From the first shot to the last shot wasn’t even a full hour. And that includes the time it took us to drive from the Capitol to the Arboretum. As always there’s more pictures below, just click the thumbnail. And don’t forget to leave comments.
For those of you who don’t know 2257 is the chapter of some new regulations the federal government is instituting on photographers that create nude photographs. I’m not gonna go into huge detail on it, if you do a search online you can find out all that you need to know. What I am gonna do is draw some parallels to a fictional law that will bring out many of the negative aspects of it.
The given reason for these regulations is to prevent child pornography. The creators of this legislation believe that the new rules will decrease child pornography and give law enforcement new tools to combat it. Those two simple sentences will get many people to support 2257.
My hypothetical example is a law against speeding. Now you might say that speeding is already illegal. You’re right, and child pornography is already illegal as well. 2257 requires creators of nude or sexually explicit content to do is keep certain identifying records such as name and birthday, and allow the government to access them whenever they’d like. My fictional law would require all drivers to keep records of the distance travelled and the time it took on each trip, and also allow the government to access these records.
The more astute of you may already see where I’m going with this. Why would someone that is breaking the law keep a record of it in a way that the government suggests? If I’m going to take sexually explicit pictures of a minor do you honestly think I’m going to keep a copy of her ID on file so that the government can walk in and use the record against me? NO! The only people who are going to keep accurate records are the people who are not committing the crime. In my speeding law, if you travel 100 miles, and it only takes you an hour, are you really gonna write that down and prove to the government that you were going 100 miles an hour?
Some people will say that if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about. Oh, really? There’s some pretty significant penalties for failing to comply. Up to five years in prison. And that’s not just for willfully disregarding the law. If you don’t know about 2257 or you make a mistake on something, you can still be punished. You take some sexy pictures of your 45 year old housewife neighbor, but don’t keep the right paperwork, and you could go to jail. In our speeding law, if I drive the 2 blocks to the convenience store for a half gallon of milk, but I don’t write it down, I’ve just violated the law. It won’t matter to the government that I only went 25 mph and the speed limit is 30.
So what is this law gonna do? For the people who create child pornography it’s not gonna do anything. They were breaking the law before, they’ll keep breaking it after. For the speeder? Same thing. Some people will just do as the law says. They’ll keep the records, and spend all that time doing it. Other people just won’t. They will not change their behavior, legal or illegal, and will continue to do whatever they did before.
For others the law will make them question whether they want to do the activity they need to keep records for. If I had to write down every time I drove the 2 blocks to Pizza Hut, or the Mall, maybe I’d walk. How many photographers are going to stop taking nude pictures of anyone because of this law? Perhaps that’s the actual intent of it’s creators. They’ve tried to ban nude photography before and they’ve been unsuccessful. This law doesn’t say you can’t do it. It only makes it more difficult. And that’s the first step isn’t it? To get the people to not want to do something.
Today I did a shoot with Angela and Jeff. It was the first time I used my 70-210mm lens. I’ve had this lens for a few years, and I’ve done a few test shots with it, but never actually used it. I forgot I had it for a while and just recently rediscovered it. Anyway it has a maximum aperture of f/4-5.6. For those of you that don’t know aperture describes the size of the hole inside the lens. The larger the hole, the smaller the number. My usual lens is an f/2.8. An /f2.8 lens allows four times as much light as an f/5.6 lens. This is important because shooting in the Capitol like today I was today, there isn’t that much light, which means long shutter speeds, which means it’s harder to get a sharp picture, especially with a telephoto lens like the 70-210. I got some good pictures, but I know that I could have gotten better ones with a better lens.
Unfortunately, lenses that let in more light, are more expensive. A lens like I was shooting with today can be bought for $100 to $300 dollars. A lens like I need, 70-200mm f2.8 is $1,800.
Benton has started jumping from the upper window onto the couch
Benton is a daredevil. He’s started jumping from that half moon window, to the couch. He’s never really gone in the window much. Then the other day he was up, looked down, looked at me, put his feet over the edge, then jumped. He landed right in the middle cushion.
I think he jumped from the top of the stairs on the other side too, but I didn’t see him do it. My back was turned, I heard him land, and he was on the other side of the couch, but he could have just walked there.
This is my second post. It’s a test to see how it works. Test of how long I can type before the words start to wrap around to the next level. I’m trying to have a two column blog and right now it doesn’t fit correctly.
