Hard Rock Ballet: Mellow 20/35

Hard Rock Ballet: Mellow 20/35

The theme of women in nature is a classic motif. Despite everything, it is difficult for me. I have to admit that. I don't like photos that look too heavy. That seem too artistic. So somehow forced. I have to feel an image and sometimes this is very difficult for me with naked women in nature.

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Nevertheless, nature is incredibly fascinating and definitely suitable as a location. For me it just has to fit together somehow. Like with the ballerina Bella. She is a real trained ballet dancer. I photographed her at an impressive natural stone arch in Tenerife.

I thought for a while about whether she should pose on top of the arch. But then I decided against it. If something had happened, I wouldn't have been happy in my life again.

While we were there, various people came and took pictures (probably for social media) right up the arch.

But they were show-off photos (the hand in the Victory sign and stuff like that) and I didn't want to be tempted. Not run after them like a lemming. And so I staged Bella's connection with the rocks differently.

The ravages of time have taken their toll on this location. Cracks are forming in the rock and some of the very stable-looking sections of rock are simply crumbling away. I fear that this unique place will soon have to be closed, as it will simply be too dangerous to enter. Who knows, maybe even the whole archway will collapse in a few years.

Outtake

I struggled with the shots for a long time and it didn't feel one hundred percent right. Until I decided to convert two of the photos to black and white. Now it was perfect for me.

Black and white simply has a different effect and in such figurative shots, colors sometimes distract too much.

I would like to point out the little cloud on the right. Isn't it kind of cute? I checked it three times. It's in my RAW data, I promise! The cloud was really there and looked exactly like that.

My weekly articles sometimes read a bit strangely if you haven't seen the photos in the book. That annoys me a bit myself, but I don't want to just print my book on my blog. That wouldn't make sense to me.

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