Jason Tag Photography

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has helped to make this dream a reality.  Thanks to the models for taking a chance and giving me a shot.  Thanks to everyone writing on and saying the nice things you all have said about the work.  And thanks goes to all the photographers who has helped me out, given me tips and pointers.

As I start to plan my next big step in photography, I felt it was important to acknowledge everyone who has helped me get this far.  So a big thanks to everyone!  More coming soon…..

Aloha,
Jason Tag

I’m currently working on another shoot that will hopefully be this weekend.  My next shoot I have scheduled won’t be until next weekend.  It’s with a model who’s just amazing and I can’t wait to work with her.  Other than that things are pretty quiet around here.  I’m looking at a pretty busy September so I’m laying low this month.

One model that I had worked with back in February had moved away and is coming back to Hawaii.  We’ve already talked and I can’t wait for her to get back because I had a great time working with her we will be working together next month.

That’s all the ones that fit to print.Stay tuned…

I’ve been thinking about the whole zivity thing and it might be interesting way for me to branch out a little and try some other styles of nude/semi-nude photography. It might be fun to try and shoot in a pin-up style or even to do nude portraits or even a lingerie shoot. Photographing for zivity could end up being a lot of fun!

Well I got the invite to be on Zivity! Yay! I’m so stoked. For those of you who may not know, Zivity is turning social networking on it’s ear right now! Zivity is a social networking site which showcases beautiful images of beautiful women. Their goal is to promote female beauty (nude or non-nude), empower women, and to allow each woman to be glamorous.

How it works is each user pays a monthly subscription fee to access the site. Each user also gets 5 votes and can vote for their favorite images. The votes represent about 80 cents which gets split between the model and the photographer with 60 cents going to the model. It sounds like a fun way to enjoy beautiful images and support wonderful artists at the same time.

So now that I’m on the site I’m looking for models who are interested in working with me on a shoot for Zivity. You don’t have to have experience,  just a good attitude, an open mind and want to have some fun. If you’d like more information about the shoot, drop me a line at jasontag@jasontagphoto.com.

A few weeks ago I picked up a little point & shoot from Sanyo. As I said in an earlier post, I wanted something I can pull out quickly and snap off shots that just strike me as interesting or as a way to collect ideas as I see them. While I was in Manoa the other day I decided to play around and I have to say it’s a good camera. Maybe not good enough for my artistic stuff, but it’s a good camera for I bought it for.

Manoa Valley

Recycle Bin

Mango Tree

Before I did the shoot with Ashleigh, I knew that she had tattoos. I had only done one shoot with a model who had a tattoo before and we tried very hard to work around it. Trying not to photograph it. It ended up being an interesting challenge. What ended up happening was that I mostly shot the model from the side without tattoos. Which led to having most of the shots from the same side.

Tattooed Nude

With Ashleigh I decided that it’s her body and it’s she’s chosen to decorate it this way. It’s real and I find it beautiful. As I drove to the shoot, I had an idea to get a few close up shots of her tattoos. Partially as a way to embrace the tattoos as a part of her being, but also because I thought it might be interesting to see the tattoos in the context of the nude. Now I think I’m onto something with this thought.

Now I’m thinking it might be interesting to do a whole book on just tattooed nudes. it might be interesting to see images like the one above of tattoos and the nude body.

If you’ve been reading for a while now you know that I usualy write a post-mortem article about each of my shoots. I haven’t done one of these for a while mainly because the last few shoots I’ve been working on my confidence as a photographer and artist.

This was Ashleigh’s first time posing nude. I figured that she might need a bit more time to get comfortable but she was quite comfortable with her body. She also had a very good sense of the kinds of poses work well for artistic nudes. It was a joy to work with her and I even felt quite confident in talking to her. Normally I’m a basket case in my nervousness around beautiful women but on this one I had no problems. As we worked we talked and just had a good time together.

The first shots I wanted to get we’re at Pele’s Chair. I wanted to shot here first because I thought that this might be a popular destination and I wanted to get some shots here before any people showed up. Fro the moment I first saw Pele’s Chair I just knew I had to shoot nudes there. I knew that the contrast between skin and the rock would be amazing.

One of the first shots with Ashleigh

We started off with basic poses. Just Ashleigh sitting on the rocks with a sarong covering her body. At one point she pointed out a cool rock in an area below Pele’s Chair that she wanted to shoot on. So we climbed down and did some fun poses there. When I turned to look around the area for more ideas, I spotted an area that reminded of the famous shot with Raquel Welch where she’s wearing the loin cloth. So I asked her if we could try to do a shot like that and it turned out to be interesting. I don’t know if it comes close but I like what we did anyways.

Trying to re-create the famous Raquel Welch poster

After Pele’s chair we hiked back down to the beach area and started looking at ideas when a hiker started walking towards us so we moved farther down the rocks away from view. We did a few shots of her laying on the rocks near the ocean but the hiker started freaking me out a little so we made our way back to where our stuff was and headed to some tidepools.

At the tidepools we learned just how powerful and unpredictable the ocean really is. There was a great looking rock I wanted to shoot with. She climbed up and got into position. I got a few shots, then she moved to another part of this rock. I got one shot when a huge wave crashed, soaking both of us, including my camera. All I saw was a flash of white and all I just prayed that she was still on the rock. She was but she ended up getting a small scrape on her knee. We got away from the water very quickly. I felt bad that she got the scrape and we spent the rest of the shoot trying not to get it in the shots. I just hope that it doesn’t leave a scar.

Posing nude on metal tubes

For the last 45 minutes of the shoot we shot using the large metal tubes I found there. I thought they might provide from an interesting background. I think the shots we did with these tubes are my favorites from the shoot. I just liked how the tone of her skin and the tone of the rusted metal was interestingly similar while the textures are opposites. We shot in, on, and around the tubes and had a lot of fun with them.

Overall we had a great time and I now feel like I’m more confident in my exposure settings and in working with models. Good lessons to have learned.

After hearing about RedBubble.com on twitter. I decided to take the plunge and post my work on another art community website. Up til now I’ve been dealing only with DeviantArt.com and I love the feedback that I’ve been receiving there as well as the encouragment. I’ve tried posting my work on a few other sites and had some problems with a lack of respect for the models or the art in general. So I was quite hesitant to try redbubble based on the fear that I would get a lot of people not understnding the art or being disrepectful.

Redbubble isn’t like that. It’s a great site with a great community of artists. From the first image, I felt that there was a greta deal of respect form the other artists as well as the fans. Thanks redbubble for making such a great site and for creating a great community.

You can check out my RedBubble portfolio at: www.redbubble.com/people/jasontagphoto

Aloha,
Jason Tag

P.S. I’ll be posting an official “Lessons Learned” on the shoot with Ashleigh in a few days. Right now I’m a bit sick and need to rest. Stay tuned!

Waimnalo, Hawaii Aug. 6 2008

Today’s shoot was with a new model. Ashleigh had never posed nude before but had always wanted to. The moment she told me this it sounded familiar. It made me realize how I started shooting nudes is pretty much the same as how she started posing for nudes. Having a desire to do it, but needing another person to help fulfill the dream. In my case it was a model. In her case, a photographer. I feel very honored that she chose me to do her first nude shoot. She is an amazingly beautiful woman. I hope that she will continue to model as I know she’ll do very well.

Waimnalo, Hawaii Aug. 6 2008

We started our shoot on the backside of Pele’s Chair. I was surprised at how comfortable she was with her body and with being nude. Considering that this was her first nude shoot, I expected her to be a little more reserved. I’m glad that she was comfortable because it seemed to give the rest of the shoot a feeling of exploration and discovery that was quite nice.

Overall, It was a lot of fun to hang out with such a beautiful person and capture beautiful images. It was a joy to work with her and I hope I’ll get to shoot with her again soon.

Aloha,
Jason Tag

I was getting worried because I wasn’t sure If I was going to be able to afford a shoot this time around.  I usually shoot about every two weeks because thats what my budget can afford at the moment.  The price of gas and all that plus bills, had me pretty worried.  But I picked up an extra gig this week that will allow me to do it.  So I scheduled a shoot for tomorrow morning.

The model has never done nude modeling before so it should make for a challenging shoot. If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ve probably figured out that I love to be challenged.  It forces me to be better.  It makes me work harder in communicating ideas and poses.  It also makes me really analyze how I shoot and how I compose the shots.  I can’t wait to work with her and see what else I might learn!

I’ll be updating the site as I usually do after every shoot so stay tuned…