Uploads from Lou O' Bedlam, tagged melanie

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:43:25 -0800

I'm drawn towards people with a certain aesthetic, but my range has broadened over the years.

The more people I photograph, the more interested I am in finding different kinds of people to talk to, investigate.

And every time I think I've gotten a handle on having a broad perspective on life, on people, someone will come along and broaden it further.

Wasn't until I started writing yesterday's post that I began to seriously think about natural beauty versus...what, manufactured? altered? beauty.

About how pointless it is to label one more authentic than another, times we live in.

People decorate their skin with ink, change their genders, pick their wardrobes, their haircuts.

For some, these are purely aesthetic choices. For others, far deeper motivations are at work, yeah?

So when we talk about natural beauty...where's the value?

Melanie is, with the tattoos, closer to the person she, deep down, believes herself to be. That she wasn't born with them is irrelevant. They make her more Melanie than she was before.

I've models who are only comfortable with their make-up on. Is that the conditioning of our culture, or the modifications they utilize to create externally what they feel internally? Is that not as authentic an expression of self, what/how we choose to show ourselves to the world?

We are who we choose to be, not who we were born as, and the older I get, the more I'm drawn to people who have consciously made that choice, and express it as fully as possible.

People who are comfortable with themselves, not because they Got Used To who they were, but because they made the revisions they felt got them closer to who they wanted to be.

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 05:31:36 -0700

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nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:43:45 -0700

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nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 05:16:39 -0700

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nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:25:31 -0700

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nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:27:55 -0800

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(Always) One More Shot Before We Go

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 06:03:18 -0700

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Melanie, Under the Hot Lights

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:36:23 -0700

Lou O' Bedlam posted a photo:

Not as punk rock as she looks here, you should know.

I suppose I could go on about tattoos, how tattoos used to be for sailors and gutter punks, but meh. I sound like an old man when I do that.

Better I should talk about surprise. About Melanie's continual surprise during the shoot, mainly in how I work. How I don't direct like others she's worked with, how I don't give much consideration to styling or location, maybe how sometimes I let the silence do its work to create something spontaneous.

Sometimes I look at the person I'm photographing and realize there's nothing I can say to get the shot I want, I just have to wait, wait for that expression to cross their face in their own time, at their own pace.

Waiting is definitely a skill I'm working on mastering.

Just the Right Amount of Shade

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 07:37:02 -0700

Lou O' Bedlam posted a photo:

I've got a list on my computer, a list of folks I need NEED to shoot again.

Melanie's right at the top.

I feel we only scratched the surface the first shoot. The conversation was engaging, the shots came out just right, but there's more, more to discover.

It's the best kind of complication during a shoot, finding yourself with questions you want answered before you take another picture.

Here's a question for you folks: what is it you're looking to get from your subjects?

Gimme long answers, because I'm off on a plane, might not be able to post again for a wee bit.

Where am I going, you ask? I'M TEACHING IN ENGLAND!!! COME, ATTEND, AND BE CHANGED FOREVER!!!!

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 00:40:54 -0700

Lou O' Bedlam posted a photo:

It'd been an age since I'd done any nudes. It's not an area in which I excel, or in which my mind has any great ideas for, so I've not pursued it.

But it came up with Melanie, so I gave it a whirl.

And, truth be told, it wasn't all that great. Melanie was great, the photos turned out just fine, but in the end, it still isn't where I feel my most creative, where I feel I can see something deeper in my subjects. It's become, well gosh, it's become too normal, I suppose. No longer as taboo, more acceptable, it's at the point where people, and this here is a very good thing, are no longer thinking about nudity in such a calvinistic way.

The problem is that I've always viewed nudity in general and in photos specifically as something meant to be revealing, precisely Because it was normally hidden.

But I no longer believe that to be the case, if it ever really was. Perhaps it was an idea I grafted onto the work, perhaps it was never able to reveal more in the subjects.

I see nude photos on the internet by photographers, and most likely I'm disappointed. It's just an excuse for the photographer to see a naked body, or to exert power, or to titillate.

It actually makes it easier to recognize the good ones, because they stand out, they are about more than just that, they are about something far more interesting.

Dunno if I ever got there, but I did give it a shot.

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 05:18:02 -0700

Lou O' Bedlam posted a photo:

new project: CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PARTIES

It's me, photographing people riding/driving in cars. Daytime, nighttime, themed outfits, hanging out of windows at dangerous angles. Good Times.

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 05:43:48 -0700

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Melanie, in the Driveway

nobody@flickr.com (Lou O' Bedlam) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 07:18:30 -0700

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