TITLE: Hard Lines, Soft Curves

I wish I could claim that I had this particular B&W end result clear in mind when I took the photo and that I got it right or almost right in camera. Heck, I wish I could even just claim that I knew what I wanted to end up with when I first started to post-process the original photo! But the truth is that I pretty much "stumbled upon" the final result. Well, almost.

During one of the nude photoshoots I had with the model Jenni Czech, we decided to incorporate a bunch of decoration bamboo poles that were lying around in a portrait and bodyparts session. With Jenni standing in front of a blue wall, I took a dozen of shots using available light, but they looked dull, so I decided to turn on my speedlight and bounce the flash off the ceiling. The subsequent photos looked more lively, but they weren't really striking, so after a couple more shots we decided to move on to something else.

When I first sat down later to post-process the session's photos, I pretty much stumbled upon a surprisingly good starting point for this B&W result while experimenting with and widely adjusting the Tone sliders in Lightroom. From there, I gradually developed and built up a version that I released and that is close to the final result you see here.

Later on, and after I learned about some more advanced B&W processing concepts and techniques such as the Zone System and the importance of controlling the mid-greys, I decided to take that intermediate version that I released before and work on it further using what I have learned, creating this final result you see here.

AUTHOR: RSY Photography (Russian Federation)

An award-winning (International Photography Awards, MonoVisions Photography Awards, TZIPAC Eros Awards) hobbyist photographer who is secretly exploring nude photography.