Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Nudes
I took this in 1981 when I was a junior at MIT. I used a dark brown blanket as the
background and the overhead light in my dorm room for illumination. The camera was a
tripod-mounted Yashica twin lens reflex (6x6), valued at approximately $100.
In 1993, I tried to duplicate the picture with higher-tech equipment. I used a $5,000
Rollei 6008, elaborate studio strobe system with softbox, and motorized seamless paper
background. Even the model was higher tech (taller, thinner). The results? Pathetic. The
room light was too bright for me to adequately judge the outcome with the strobes'
modeling lights. Consequently, the image was much too high in contrast.
Sometimes a brain is more important than a fancy camera.
Motion
Most nudes are static, heir first to the tradition of painting and then to the limitations of early cameras. But with $30,000 of studio
strobes there is really no reason not to show the body in motion. Richard Avedon keeps his models constantly in motion so that he never
gets a frozen deer-in-the-headlights look. To ensure that the light on each model stays constant as he or she moves, Avedon has
assistants follow the models around with lights at the end of booms.
http://www.photo.net/nudes/ (3 of 21)12/08/2004 02:14:48