Bodyscape - NUDES

[Manfred M]

Bodyscapes are nude images that often only feature parts of the body. They are done as both colour images and black and whites. Hard lighting is often used to produce areas of dark and light. Sometimes the body has oil applied with and without water spray to change the look.

The shots often have a level of abstraction as the model's head is often not shown in the image. The model in this series is Randi Rouge, a local figure model that also does posing for painters. She was posing on a massage table. There is a bit of a risk to both the model and photographer as some of the oil can drip onto the floor, creating a slipping hazard!


1. Frontal nude - B&W





2. Frontal nude with light oil coating - Colour





3. Frontal nude B&W with heavy oil coating

[Donald]

Interesting that these are called 'Bodyscapes' and that you are, in a sense, removing the person and seeing the body as a set of shapes and tones, much as in a landscape. And, my point being, that the B & Ws are much more appealing than the colour. But, then, I would say that!

[pnodrog]

I prefer the first photo as it avoids the distinct change in both tone and sheen at the bikini line.

[Rent]

First one for me
Roy

[Chris]

Have to agree the first one to me is my fav

[Shadowman]

I like the images where oil was used as it adds additional shapes and more pronounced highlights as opposed to first image; also the oil helps tame the fine hairs on the models arm.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the comments and thoughts.

This is a genre I would like to explore a little bit more, but suspect that that won't happen all that often due to the prep and setup required.

Doing this type of shoot is rather messy and lots of towels (= dirty laundry with oil coated towels) and oil tends to get all over the place, including the floor and furniture. The shooting area does need to be near a shower as the model does need to clean up before getting into her street clothes and not all studios are equipped this way. This also means either the whole shoot has to be bodyscape with oil or only the last part of the shoot due to the cleanup. Towards the end of the shoot, everyone is getting a bit tired and often behind schedule.

I ten to agree with you Donald; at this point I find that B&W results seem to be a bit stronger. At this point I'm not sure if this is genre related or just the way the images ended up. I hope to explore this a bit more, if I get the chance.

Regardless, I generally find that in most portraiture work, women seem to not work as well when using high lighting ratios, but this genre is definitely the exception. I expect this is mainly due to the fact that the face is not the main area of interest in this type of image making.