New tarot card! And the first one I’ve done with a guy in quite a while. I can’t believe this is the 79th I’ve done. If it weren’t for me redoing some I’d be done.
No worries. I’m happy with what I have.
This one features JP Crawford (MM#1498468), a model from DC who drove up just to be a part of the projet.
Working on the last several tarot cards that I’ve shot that I hadn’t had a chance to post. This should take me up to 51. Only 17 more to go.
Sometimes its amazing how simple something can be. I spent months obsessing over how I was going to rig the hanged man card just right to have someone hanging upside down by one foot. Only in the last week or so did it occur to me that I had changed the base pose of pretty much every other card, so why not that one?
Anyway, once I figured out that i should change the base pose, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this one. I had wanted a male bondage card to offset Temperance anyway, and Cade seemed like a natural for it.
Decided it was long past time I posted some more cards. I wonder if people even remember that I was doing this. Anyway, I had shot a couple more cards in some of my last few photoshoots but been holding off on dealing with them since I had so much else going on. I thought it was high time I put them up though.
I never met Leann before the day I shot her. She had heard about the projeet and wanted to be a part of it. But once I started shooting her, the exact way her hair was, her tattoos and even her body just screamed to me that I had found my Justice card.
I am quite happy with this card. When I came up with the concept while talking to Rachael, we were both kind of excited about it. In fact, talking about the card with her was the entire thing that inspired me to take her, Laurie and Amaya on the river shoot.
That said, I was kind of nervous about it. I was quite confident that taking pictures of three gorgeous girls nude, in an absolutely gorgeous mountain river setting during golden hour would turn out great. What I was worried about, however was doing a tarot card outside of the studio setting. From the very beginning of this project, I had intended to do every shot in the studio so that I could have visual consistency in the style. But I had taken pictures at the waterfall before and I was pretty sure I could blacken it and process it to the level that would make it look the way I wanted. Especially with golden hour lighting.
I’m quite happy with how it turned out and hope that it matches the other cards well enough. I wonder if I’ll end up doing any other cards outside.
And of course comments and criticism welcome.
Sarah was nice enough to volunteer to pose for the Tarot deck when she was visiting last week. The second she volunteered, I knew exactly what card I wanted to use her for. I love the tattoo on her shoulder and she has just enough hair to obscure her face in mystery and make a perfect High Priestess. Originally I was thinking of adding some background elements like I did with some of the other cards, but as I was finishing up, I felt like that would have been doing too much. I remembered why I went for the cold black backgrounds in the first place. Not to distract from the model. Just let her create the mood alone.
Comments and criticism welcome and encouraged as always.
It’s been a tarot filled day. This is the last card I have completed (and shot for that matter) and since I don’t yet have any shoots scheduled this week (that may change) this may be the last one for a while.
This is also the first time in the deck that I have resorted to using stock footage. I have been against it for the most part, preferring to only use my own images, but I don’t seem to have a way of getting far enough out into the atmosphere to get a decent earth picture, so I was forced to rely on NASA to do it for me. The image is of course public domain. But still, it would have been nice to only use my own images. I suppose I could have left the background empty on this card, but I kind of felt like the four astronomy cards (World, Moon, Sun, Star) worked better with mild backgound elements. So the compromise is there.
Adjusted processing and cropping of this version of the wheel of forutune card. I still don’t think I like it as much as some of the other cards, but I do feel like its a lot better. Still, would love other opinions. Blah…
Another day, another Tarot card. I’m not totally sure how I feel about this one. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I think mostly I’m not happy with my lighting job this time and I think the concept might have been too literal and obvious almost campy. I don’t know. This may be one that I have to reshoot or come up with a different concept for. It just doesn’t feel right to me right now.
Would love to hear opinions and comments.
The problem with some of the tarot cards is they require very specific casting. Judgement, for instance requires a newborn baby and a mother. And since the major arcana cards are all nude, it required a naked newborn and mother. So, when a friend of mine had one I certainly wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.
Connie was nice enough to bring over her four week old son, Thomas Jefferson so they could pose for my tarot deck. I am quite grateful, and I’m sure this will traumatize him 13 years from now.
Another tarot card complete. This time my friend Jameel was nice enough to pose for it. You know, when I started this, I really expected the nude major arcana cards to be the hardest to fill, but I have more of them done than anything.
I swear, there are clothed cards coming… really there are.
Schwei was a friend of Brae’s (the model I picked to be the Death card in my Tarot deck) and was accompanying her on her shoot with me. He didn’t have any modeling experience but he had a good look for my concept of the Devil card. I especially love the beard and the tattoo on his hand.
Initially I had envisioned the devil having traditional horns, and I probably could have created some pretty realistic ones in photoshop or maybe with theater makeup, but in retrospect, I’m kind of glad I didn’t. I really like the look of the single model bathed in red light except for the flaming hand. I think more would have been distracting.
This also shows that there are indeed men in the Tarot deck. It’s only the second male card I’ve done. Its actually a little harder to find male models for this kind of thing than I thought it would be. I also need to get some more of the less gothic cards done. Just so that there’s a little more variety. The cards with Steph and Theresa show a little more playfulness, but its still on the dark side right now.
When I first saw Brae’s modeling page I knew that she had to be my death card. She had the perfect look for what I had envisioned for it. Exotic, sexy. Reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s Death, but a little more dangerous. I had the base idea for what i wanted to do in mind when I first wrote her, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
I went back and forth as to how ghostly I wanted to make her. I considered putting tombstones directly behind her so that you could really see right through her, but the ultimately decided that that would ruin a rule I had set for the deck when I first started. Don’t let the background overwhelm the model. It’s something that I really feel about photography in general, actually, which is why I am so fond of the solid black background look.
In any case. 8 Tarot cards done. Only 70 to go. That’s better than 10% I’m on a roll!
The fourth completed card in my tarot card series.
Mallory as the Moon. I had originally envisioned this as a card where she was standing and looking at the moon, but as we were shooting yesterday, she got tired of standing and wanted to shoot some sitting down. I really loved her head placement in this one and the arch of her back. I think the facial expression is perfect for what I wanted to convey.
The biggest thing I am unsure of is the placement of the moon. When I took the pic of the moon last week, I really had envisioned her looking at it, not away, but I do feel as though it kind of works how it is. Not positive though.
Finally began the process of creating my Tarot card deck. This is the first card I have completed. The model is my friend Gina (the day before she gave birth to her new baby). This is card Five, of the major Arcana, The Empress. Only 77 more cards to go.
Used in LJ post: chrismaverick.livejournal.com/249658.html
Image replaced on 4-28-07 with correct numbering