Wide angle's make for interesting views

Back in 2008 I worked with Lance and the first time I worked with him ( think I worked with him twice) he busted out his brand new wide angle lens. 

This, over the years, is one of my favorite photos.  I love how first you look at my fingers that points to my eyes.  The eye can then travel down the hair and back around to the fingers or down the body to the shy.  The color balance is lovely and I love the contrast of my hair with the shirt.  Overall it is a well framed, well edited and well posed.

Sometimes its just bacon

2010 Jeremy.Kruempel

All about knowing your good side

We all laugh at the idea that we have a good side, but its actually true.  When you are modeling knowing your strong and weak features are can make a break a head shot.  I had to learn through practice and looking at a lot of photos.  When I say a lot I mean a lot.  Some photographers will give you all the photos in a session (200-1000+) to others who will only give you finished work.  The ones who give you a ton take it as a learning experience!

For angles I will show you a set I did with Nick back in 2010.  These are mostly raw photos though you can see when a photo passed to "I'll edit that" status.

 

This is the first image from the set.   I have good things going for me.  1) strong jaw, and cheek bone,  2) a large eyes and 3) well defined muscles.  I have things going against me 1) a deep set eye with a heavy brow, 2) strong jaw (a blessing an curse), and 3) over all androgynous look with both strong and delicate features.  In this photo I have a good eye contact, but my hand looks wonky and my jaw looks too big.  A good try for photo 1.

For a while went through a phase that chin as high as it can go was the best thing ever .  It isn't.  It looks like you are looking up my nose, I have dark circles under my eyes and the proportions of my face just look silly atm.

Now i am getting closer.  You aren't looking up my nose, a definite plus, my eyes look better, and at closer to a 3/4 profile and the over all proportions of the face are better.  There is something off with the neck that makes it looks short and my lower lip is not as defined as it should be, but the latter may be due to editing.

This is the shot from this set. I have learned over the years that my profile and 3/4 profile are very very strong with me.  My chin is well defined but not too strong, the lighting has made my bone and muscle structure shine and the styling looks pretty cool.  

I hope this help showcase the power of knowing your good side.  If you all have a photo that you want me to break down when pertaining to the model please comment with a link to the photographers site.

How far we come

Back in 2007 I started modeling and this image came from the second shoot I ever did.  I was at the EE Wilson Wildlife Preserve with David West.  Once again we were dealing with harsh light (a common problem when shoot outside) and I had no idea what I was doing.  He coached me through what he wanted from this image set and we got this one.  A good photographer can really help a model get the image both parties want.

David has since dropped off the face of the planet aka I have no idea what happened to him, but he did leave me this rather good image.  Its not the best, its not the worst.  But it is a reminder to me that even if you have no idea what you are doing sometimes you hit gold.

Welcome to A Model Opinion, a bog on modeling, pretty photos and how a model, photographer and sometimes a makeup artist can work as a team to make wonderful images.  I have been modeling at a local level for a little over 6 years and love it.  Sadly the rest of my life doesn't allow me to model all the time.  But hey its all good.

I will start my blog with a shot I and Andrew K over at Absolute Reality Studios at Sauvie Island after he got off work yesterday.  We had lovely clear skies, very harsh light and a cool old abandoned barn to create this wonderful image.

We tried laying, sitting, laying the other direction in this one patch of light, but crouching ended up being just right.  When modeling in a tight location with harsh light you have to remember that the lines of your muscles, texture of your hair and how the shadows fall can make or break an image.  In this case Andrew loved she shadows of my hair on my leg, and I love the shadows and greys and bright light on my right leg.  I also really like how smooth my skin looks in comparison to the floor and the texture of my hair.