A friend of mine who is also a photographer was recently looking at my work and made an interesting observation about my nudes portfolio. He noted that I tend to shoot the entire body and never come in close for tight shots. After listening to this I had another look at my work and he is correct in this. I never gave it much thought before but after thinking about it I realized my reasons for doing this. I always felt that when shooting nudes, the entire body is necessary to tell a story or show or evoke an emotion. However after doing a quick crop of one of my photos he showed this to be untrue. In fact the cropped version was much more powerful to me.

So, as a result of this I have been scouring my archives of all my nude shoots looking for any close or tight shots that I might have taken before but just decided weren't any good. I have discovered a few photos which I will post below.

After looking at these photos I came to another realization as to how much more control I have over my lighting than before and in my opinion how this has greatly improved my photography.

Shooting close or tight shots will also force me to think of the body in a completely direct way to what I am used to and this will hopefully make for some interesting photos. Maybe less emotion and more sculpture like is an approach I should try. The soft curve of the lower back, the strained neck as the head is twisted, a knee, an elbow? I am not sure at this point but look forward to trying.

Hope you are having a great weekend.

Chad