Working With Natural Lighting

After a brief hiatus from shooting while I was preoccupied with travelling and other matters, I returned to my camera and the woods to shoot with a model. The main focus of this shoot was to use natural lighting to highlight the beauty in the male form. The male model used for this shoot was delightfully pleasant to work with, bringing a lovely charm to both the shoot and the photos. 

 

The real significance of this shoot for me was the development in the maturity in my style of photography. The results highlighted to me a shift from novice photographer who was still trying to find his bearings to a competent photographer who is confident in his work and understands what he is trying to achieve. 

 

Throughout the shoot, we varied the poses from seated positions to standing up. Both worked to high levels of success and I am highly pleased with how they turned out. To further my work and abilities, I hope to become stronger at directing models in new positions and guiding them through the shoot. My aim is to produce images with more dynamic poses, rather than the more subdue and natural poses that are in my comfort zone.

 

Introduction

Why nude in nature? Men are living in a world where they are expected to live up to unrealistic body expectations set by the media. If you do not fit the ‘ideal male form’, that can have serious repercussions to those men. Feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy run rampant amongst these men.

That is why I am trying to challenge these ‘beauty standards’ by photographing the male form in nature, to show that no matter the body type, each body is just as worthy as any other.  I hope for my photography to empower these men and encourage them to love their bodies.