Yucel Yalim - Alternative Nudes: Creative Lighting and Posing for Photographers

Copyright 2015 by Yucel Yalim

All rights reserved.

All photographs by the author unless otherwise noted.

Published by:

Amherst Media, Inc.

P.O. Box 586

Buffalo, N.Y. 14226

Fax: 716-874-4508

www.AmherstMedia.com

Publisher: Craig Alesse

Senior Editor/Production Manager: Michelle Perkins

Editors: Barbara A. Lynch-Johnt, Harvey Goldstein, Beth Alesse

Associate Publisher: Kate Neaverth

Editorial Assistance from: Carey A. Miller, Sally Jarzab, John S. Loder

Business Manager: Adam Richards

Warehouse and Fulfillment Manager: Roger Singo

ISBN-13: 978-1-60895-868-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014955645

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise, without prior written consent from the publisher.

Notice of Disclaimer: The information contained in this book is based on the authors experience and opinions. The author and publisher will not be held liable for the use or misuse of the information in this book.

Table of Contents

Y UCEL YALIM, international artist and professional photographer with studios in Phoenix, has created photographs celebrating the beauty of women for over 30 years. Yucels seemingly innate sense of composition induces onlookers to question their understanding and acceptance of what constitutes being human within a greater sense of what it means to be alive.

With keen eyes for composition and interests in the human form, Yucels photographs take on anthropomorphic characteristics which capture the human body in extraordinarily angular positions. His art prints reflect bold framings fully utilizing available technologies, as exemplified by compositional choices of subject placement on canvas and clear willingness to employ new methods to ancient subjects. Yucels images will shake up your sense of what is familiar and have you re-approach your belief systems through fresh eyes.

While at John Hopkins University, where Yucel received a BES in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, he took his first classes in wet black & white photography. He later received an MBA in Asian Pacific Management from City University in Washington. Before returning to his passion for photography, he enjoyed a successful twenty-five year career in sales and marketing management in the corporate world of the semiconductor industry.

Yucels photography indulges his eye for glamour and aesthetic features as evidenced in his many images of women. Likewise, as he has a long accomplished sense of the corporate world, he is committed to photographing high energy corporate events, impactful executive head shots which are tailored to convey character and finely honed messages about his subject, and select commercial projects such as assignments for Google Business View. He often freelances for several magazines and is a staff photographer for Swimsuit Illustrated. His deepest photographic creative passions remain in fine-art nudes, boutique boudoir portraits, and crafting quality headshots.

Strong Areas of Light and Dark

What makes this image compelling visually is the mirroring of feminine curves in body, hair, and couch along with its series of strong repeating diagonals as seen in the models limbs. Dramatic lighting was arranged to bring out just such features.

What is dramatic lighting? To me, it is lighting with strong areas of light and dark contrast. The image below shows what happens when only two lights were used and where the overhead strip light was not yet goboed.

Lighting

Notice the legs of the model were in shadow and hidden from view in this preliminary image, bottom left, showing the lighting setup. She was left awkwardly floating in space on ghostlike legs. As can be seen in the final image, facing page, adding a goboed strip light to camera right opened up the models left leg, all the way down to her toes and gave definition to her right calf and foot. The gobo used, being silver on one side, also acted as a reflector. Feather according to your preference, taking care that the reflector does not kick in too much light. There was also a feathered reflector to camera left, sitting back far enough to give the subtlest hint of definition and fill to the left-side shadows.

Note the ghosting around the strip light. Proper gobo placement between light and lens helps eliminate this ghosting.

The light-stand leg, seen in frame right of the lighting setup, was removed in post-processing of the final edited image. The choice was made to leave the barn doors at top right of the frame because this aided compositionally by balancing the local negative space. Removing the barn doors would have required re-cropping the image tighter, taking away from its current feeling of width. Interestingly, the strip box above and behind the model not only rimmed the couch, it also acted as the main light by casting the main shadows. This was not a typical location for the main light. As seen here, it is very possible and sometimes very effective to break conventions.