Jason Tag Photography

A few days ago I got a note from Chris St. James who is the european editor for Carrie Leigh’s NUDE magazine and is also in charge of the fine nude art collective blog, called “Univers d’Artistes”.  He was asking if He could write an article about me and the art that I’ve been creating.   I of course said “Sure, no problem”.  Besides it would be my first write-up and why would I have a problem with that.

Well, when I got to my desk this morning, I opened up my computer.  I checked my email and then logged in to Deviant Art to check messages and to catch up on what other artists have been up to over the weekend.   this is a fairly typical start to my day.  Well when I checked my messages I received another note from Chris St. James.  in his note he said that he had written the article and gave me a link to it.

I started to read the article and was floored by it.  I started to cry as I read it.  Not out of sadness but because I was overwhelmed by the power that the words had when they were next to the images.  So I have to give a big thank you to Chris St. James for making what helping to make today an amazing day.

Read the full article here

I just updated the members area of the site with a shoot I did during the summer.  I had wanted to re-edit it first before posting it onto the site.  I finished it a few days ago and finally got the time to post it.  I hope you will enjoy the series as much as I did shooting it.

Enjoy!

Well I’ve been pretty busy the past few weeks so I haven’t done any shoots this month.  But I decided to go back and revisit a past shoot I did in May.  I never edited it using Aperture So I decided I’d go through it and see what I get.  I ended finding a few new favorites.  Which now makes me curious about the other past shoots I’ve done.  I wonder if I’ll find some new favorites if I go back through those as well….  Here are just  couple of those new favs!

Now that the month of September is winding down, I figure it’s a good time to look back at all the thing that happened this month.

Julia - September 6 2008

This month I got to work with four models I had worked with previously.  The first shoot this month was with Julia.  A very beautiful and energetic woman.  I love working with her because she’s not really a model and so she thinks differently from most of the models I work with.  Because of this she doesn’t get locked into modeling poses.  When she poses it’s more organic and natural.  I also love that she is a free spirit.  She seems as though she wants to just experience as much as she can and truly enjoy the moment.

Ashleigh - September 6 2008

The same day I shot with Julia, I also got to shoot with Ashleigh.  Another amazing woman who is just a joy to work with.  This was our second shoot together and I would say that she seemed more comfortable with me and the work this time than the first shoot we did.  Ashleigh is another woman who is fun to work with because She really seems to be able to look within and get really introspective during a shoot.  The shots we get tend to feel more personal, as if I’m capturing her experience.  Capturing a moment in time that is beautiful and magical.

Sarah E. - September 10 2008

The third shoot of September was with Sarah.  Sarah was one of the models I had worked with early on.  At the time of our first shoot I was still working out a lot of issues and trying to figure out how to work with models.  As a result I only got a few shots that were any good and I always I felt I could have done much better with her.  She moved away shortly after our first shoot and I felt sad because I was unable to work with her again and fix the problems of the earlier shoot.  So when she wrote me to say she was moving back I was stoked!  I couldn’t wait to shoot with her again.  I also felt that at the time of our first shoot, I didn’t have the experience to capture her properly.  She is one of those models that is able to internalize and to create a feeling of peace and persoanl reflection.  A truly beautiful woman who I’d like to work with more.

Sylvia - September 21 2008

My fourth shoot of the month was with the model who started all of this… Sylvia.  This time we got to shoot on the Island of Oahu.  She had wrote me and had said that she would be on Oahu for a few days.  So I took the chance to work with her in my playground. Sylvia is an amazingly talented model and a beautiful person who also has a good understanding about photography.  Working with her is a joy because I learn so much whenever I work with her.  Everything from the business of photography to getting a better angle for a shot or finding the right setting for a pose.  She also has a great sense of peace that makes being around her a real treat.

Overall September was one of my busiest months ever and it was a great deal of fun to work with these four amazing women.  I hope that I’ll get to work all of them again soon.

During the shoot with Ashleigh this month, she suggested that I should put together a calendar featuring my images.  I told her about my book(which is available on lulu.com!) and how I’m working on a second book focused on outdoor nudes and already thinking about my third book which will be featuring images of nudes in and around trees.  We continued to talk about a lot of other things that day but the calendar idea germinated for a while.  So a few days ago I decided that the calendar idea is not a bad idea.  So I put one together at RedBubble.com!  Of course prints of my images are also available at RedBubble as well.

If you buy a book, calendar, or a print let me know so I can thank you personally…

Aloha,
Jason Tag

Peaceful Morning

Over the weekend I got the chance to shoot with Sylvia on Oahu. I was so stoked to be able to shoot with her on my island for a change. The ideas that talked about for this shoot was to shoot in and around water. so we headed to a location I’ve shot at several times. Instead of staying near the trails we hiked up the stream and into areas where not alot of people would normally go. We were rewarded for being adventurous with an amazing pool of water and a few small waterfalls. It was a gorgeous setting and a place that not too many people have seen before. Which makes it such a special place for me.

Flowing Water

One of the things I wanted to capture was water flowing around Sylvia. I wanted to try to slow down the water so that it appeared as a blurry mist flowing around her body. So we spent a great deal of time on it. One of the problems I found was that it wasn’t easy to get the camera to go dark enough to allow me to get a long enough exposure time. Even with the aperture set at ƒ22 I was still getting overexposure at .5 second exposure times. I knew that in order to really blur the water I’d need at least 1 second exposure times maybe longer.

When it wasn’t working at one part of the stream we headed further upstream and we did find another great place to shoot this idea. All in all it was a great morning creating art!

Spinning Image

Do not attempt to adjust your monitor… the image is spinning, not you.

What you see in the image above is the result of something strange that started happening recently.  It’s happened a few times which is why I’m writing about now.  It actually started on a shoot I was doing with Ashleigh at the beginning of September and showed up again on my most recent shot with Sarah E.  What’s happening is that I’ll start framing my shot, then I’ll press the shutter release halfway to get exposure readings and to have the camera’s autofocus get focused.  I zoom in to make sure that the camera focused properly.  I start to zoom out and that’s when it happens.  My finger slips and bam!  I ust took a really weird picture!

It only hapened twice on my shoot with Ashleigh so I figured it’s an anomoly.  But when it happened again during the shoot with Sarah I thouhg that maybe something’s happening to make me take the picture prenmaturely.  Of course I could just be over-thinking again.  But If it happens on my next shoot then I’ll know it’s something I’ll have to work out.  Below is the image I was trying to take…. enjoy!

Sarah E. - September 10 2008

Sarah E. - September 10 2008

I had another shoot today. This time with the extremely beautiful Sarah E. She was a model I had worked with early on and she ended up moving to Florida before I had the chance to work with her again. She was so much fun to work with and hang out with that I was rather bummed when she moved. So imagine my excitement when She wrote me saying that she would be coming back to Hawaii!

Sarah E. - September 10 2008

Today’s shoot we went to an area that I had scouted before but I was unsure about whether it would work as a location to shoot nudes. It’s a popular hiking trail and is usually less popular on weekday mornings. We we’re very lucky that weren’t interrupted by people walking by or stumbling in as we we’re shooting. We only ran into other hikers as me moved from one part of the location to another. Sarah wore a sarong to cover herself between setups. So none of the hikers ever caught her in the nude. Very lucky indeed.

Sarah E. - September 10 2008

This shoot was done with the new lens and I have to say that it performed well. I think I figured out the issue with it not focusing properly. I was re-framing my shots before it was done focusing! I feel rather silly about it. So today what I did was let it finish focusing then I checked my focus to make sure and then I took the picture. I’m glad I got it figured out I was worried that I’d have to take the lens back since it is quite a good lens.

We spent a great deal of time playing on and around trees, we also spent some time shooting in the stream that meanders through the location as well. We both had a lot of fun and I’m sure there’ll be more with Sarah in the future!

Tide Pools

It ended up that I had two shoots yesterday. The first shoot of the day was a sunrise shoot that turned out to be pretty awesome. We went to a location that I had shot at before. Although this time we hiked down around some tide pools that I had never seen before and got some great shots. The model looked beautiful against the volcanic rock and the ocean.

The ocean was a bit rough and a few times we had to dodge some waves crashing against the rocks we we’re shooting on. Later in the shoot we moved to a beach that was totally deserted. So we played in the shoreline and got some really cool shots there as well.

Banyan Tree - Sept. 6 2008

The second shoot of the day was with Ashleigh. I loved shooting with her so much that when the opportunity to shoot with her again came up I took it. I knew we would create some really beautiful and interesting images. We shot at a wooded location that I’ve haven’t shot at in a few months. We really had a lot of fun walking around the area and finding fun things to shoot with.

On both shoots the new lens performed beautifully. I don’t see a big difference with the shots but I can say that it made a big difference during the shoots.  I’ll write more about the lens a little later.

All in all it was a great day for shooting and both models and myself had a great time.

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.