A blog and community devoted to sharing creative ideas for bringing a camera into your bedroom adventures, hosted by Tony and Peggy Comstock of Comstock Films.
Have you been keeping up? Things have been spotty here at Casa Comstock with the Camera Play for Couples Six Week Workout. Some flu-ish thing came home from school with our eldest daughter and we’ve been pretty mopey the past week our so.
None the less, days missed or not, I’m up to Week 3, Day 1, Column 3 of 100 Pushups, 200 Situps, and 200 Squats. You know how it works, you do reps according to numbers on your day/column and then do the last set to failure. Here are my failures:
Sit-Ups: 33
Squat: 40
Push-Ups: 30
That’s good enough to move on to Week 3, Day 2, Column 3; which we’ll tackle on Wednesday.
Till then, if you’ve bust out your reps, let me know and I’ll post ‘em here!
For all of my bluster and enthusiasm for risk-taking, there’s one thing I’m terrified of: not being taken seriously – and part of what this blog is about for me is to make a very deliberate attempt to let my guard down and loosen up a little, and this is part of a larger self-improvement project to force myself out of my comfort zone.
To that end I’ve been reading and commenting at TheAmericanScene.com, a conservative group blog; a place where people who believe in erototoxins get the benefit of the doubt, and people like me, well suffice it to say, I am somewhat of a curiosity.
Reihan also makes a confession about his longing to wear a sarong:
Some years ago, a beautiful woman told me that she thinks more men should wear sarongs, and this left an impression on me. The trouble is that I know my limitations, and I’m pretty sure there’s no way in hell I can pull off a sarong. I might be able to pull off a sarong if I were wrestling multiple grizzly bears at the same time. But that hasn’t happened in weeks. Moreover, the pro-sarong woman — full disclosure — sort of shattered my heart and ate it. And it wasn’t even an entrée: it was a side dish, like sauteed spinach, yo. Only it was my heart. Damn you! Earlier today, another beautiful woman told me that wearing a sarong would represent a serious lapse in judgment, and I guess I’ll defer to her superior wisdom.
I am a long devotee of the living “the sarong lifestyle” and I think Reihan would totally rock a sarong; and I said so in the comments, but so far no images of Reihan wearing one have surfaced on the internet. And despite what I hope will be an ongoing effort to force myself out of my comfort zone, don’t expect any YouTubes of me rapping anytime soon either!
Camera Notes
This was shot on a very foggy afternoon in our front yard with our Canon PowerShot, auto-everything, with the zoom lens on widest angle. Auto everything because the LCD screen is on the fritz and that’s the only damn way to change the setting. Wide angle because that exagerated the perspective an makes the objects in the background much smaller than the subject. Peggy took about 8 shots in about 5 minutes.
I imported them to iPhoto and tweeked the look with the following settings: Exposure +.39 Contrast +100 Highlights 56.5 Shadows 11 Saturation 80 Temperature 17.9 Tint -1.6 Sharpness 1.00 Reduce Noise 14.2.
The light quality on a foggy day actually has a soft, wrap around everything, no harsh shadows quality that can be quite lovely. But it’s also very blue and very low-contrast. I boosted the over-all color level quite a bit and added more contrast, then brought the shadows and highlight back (a little on the shadows, a lot on the highlight.) Then I warmed up the color balance and tipped the tint away from the green side to the purple side. Lastly I added a dose of sharpness and noise reduction to give the photo a slightly painterly look.
This all stuff that years ago I would have have done with additional lights, reflectors and filters, and probably would even today if this were a “professional shoot”. None the less I’m pretty impressed with iPhotos ability to take a pretty dull light and dress it up enough that I’m happy with it.
I also like the way I look in the photo. Yeah, my belly looks bigger than I’d like, but I think my arms and chest look powerful, and the rendering feels “honest”, if that makes any kind of sense. I also like the way the sarong sits on my hips. There’s a certain easy confidence that seems to express how I feel when I’m feeling my best. It’s nice to see the camera can capture that.
I’ve been a photographer for nearly 25 years. As mentioned on our About page, bringing the camera into my bedroom is something that feels as natural and sexy to me as lighting up a bunch of candles or taking out a bottle of massage oil. Making photographic mementos of my lover and our lovemaking seems as normal as making photos of any other important part of my life.
But photography and sexuality have an uneasy relationship in our society. While being sexy (in varying degrees) is often a public act, sex itself is mostly a very private act. Photography can make the private public, with or without the consent of the subjects, and with or without the consent of the viewers. That one-to-one analogy that makes photography so vivid can also make it tremendously confrontational; and while I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with being confrontational about sex, I do think that we too often see that confrontational effect as being the very essence of sexual photography.
In our “Real People, Real Life, Real Sex” series, Peggy and I have tried to present a view of cinema and sex that is less rooted in confrontation and transgression, while maintaining a sense of erotic urgency. We’ve tried to present sexual joy as a part of a rich, wholesome life. Here at CameraPlayForCouples.com we’d like to continue that exploration by presenting photographing sexual joy as a part of rich, wholesome life as well.
One of the ways that we’re going to do that is by sharing the technical and conceptual knowledge that Peggy and I have acquired in the nearly 40 years we collectively spent exploring sex in a photographic context, but re-shaped for today’s everyday digital image-making tools. The other thing we’re going to do, is highlight people who are making photographs and enjoying photography in their relationships in ways that we think illustrate and expand upon our ideas.
13 Messages is a camera-play blog maintained by the male half of a married couple, mostly photos of him, with occasional photos of his wife or the two of them together (as above.) Photos range from plainly-voiced documents to moody fragments. 13 Messages is an anonymous blog; their faces are never shown. Between images and copy, the overall tone of the blog is grown-up, playful, with just a hint of wistfulness.
I called out 13 Messages in my second post, This is What I’m Talking About! because I love, Love, LOVE the above image. This image gets at the very essence of what we want to celebrate here at CameraPlayForCouples.com. It’s sexy, connected, playful, and thoughtful. It’s artful and spontaneous. It is erotic without being confrontational. It’s defiant and it’s sweet.
After I made that first post, I sent a note asking if they would like to be interviewed for CameraPlayForCouples.com. I’m delighted they said yes!
1) How old are you? Are there any other particulars of your life that you would like CameraPlayForCouples.com readers to know about you?
I’m 39 and she’s 37.
2) When did you start taking pictures of yourself? What prompted you?
I started after I bought my first digital camera in 2002. I didn’t start taking nude or semi-nude pictures of myself, however, until I discovered Half-Nekkid Thursdays at Osbasso’s blog.
3) You wife makes occasional appearance on your blog. Did/does she have any concerns about your self-portraiture? What did you talk about before putting pictures of yourself online?
She has the usual concerns that most folks do. We just hope that we can continue to have the fun that taking and sharing pictures gives us without it affecting our professional or family lives in a negative way.
4) Do you have rules or guidelines for the images you make, or for the images you put online?
So far, we just try to keep our faces unseen. Beyond that, we don’t really put a lot of thought or rules into the process.
5) I love love love the “Mine!’ image. Can you tell us the genesis of that image, both conceptually and practical realities of pulling it together.
We had bought some body paint earlier in the week and found the Wet Paint sign that I thought we’d be able to incorporate some way into a photo shoot. As for her writing “Mine!” on my back, that was a last minute idea that we both got a kick out of.
6) Have you thought about what you would say or do if you were “outed”?
We’d run, we’d hide, we’d probably delete the blog. Of course, it’s fun so we’d probably start back up again soon after.
7) Do you feel like you’ve learned anything or given voice to anything through the process of photographing yourself and your wife? What advice would you give, either technical or philosophical, to someone who wants to turn the camera on themselves?
While I don’t feel like I’m doing anything at a level where I can give advice to others, I will say that my wife and I feel that our marriage has benefited by our semi-weekly photo shoots. Even though life keeps us busy and exhausted (three kids and two relatively low wage jobs between us), taking pictures of our nude or semi-nude bodies does something to keep the sexual interest alive. Not only does it give us that time to really remind us that we desire one another, but posting the pictures on the blog and getting positive comments reminds us that we are desirable to others. That, of course, keeps the self-esteem at a healthy level.
Thanks to Hubman and Ell, the HundredPushup.com challenge has evolved. It is now the Camera Play for Couples Six Week Workout; a six week program of push-ups, sit-ups, and squats.
We also did our initial test for the TwoHundredSquats.com program.
The results?
Peggy did 76 squats and I did 100. (That’s me around squat #50.)
Why is the image so blurry?
I’d like to say it’s art, or that it’s the camera’s fault, but the number one issue is vanity!
Mostly I like what I see when I look in the mirror. I’ll be brushing my teeth and think, “My goodness you’re a handsome devil. No wonder all the women go crazy for you!’
But something weird happens when I actually see photos of myself. My arms and shoulders get smaller, my belly gets bigger. My ass, which looks large and powerful when I look at myself in the mirror just looks big and fat in a photo. My back, which looks like it had a mild acne problem in the mirror, looks like a WWI battlefield in photos.
I don’t imagine I’m much different from the average person in this respect, and as photographer, I know the “me” that people see is a lot closer to the “me” that I see in the mirror than the “me” I see in photos. Nonetheless, I don’t especially like feeling this way about my photographic image. Do you remember that scene in AMERICAN BEAUTY, the one where Lester Burnham goes jogging with his gay neighbors?
“What are you trying to do Lester? Are you looking to put on some muscle or increase your cardio?” they ask as they start to pull away from poor Lester, already sweating and puffing.
“I just want to look good naked!” comes his plaintive reply.
Keep in mind: Peggy, and I all did the HundredPushUps.com program earlier this year. IIRC, my first try was 23 pushup and Peggy’s was 18. The number’s we’re throwing up are residual benefit, and we didn’t even complete the program. (Hubman, on the other hand is a just a natural stud!)
So why not jump in! Add your test result in the comments or via e-mail and I’ll bump ‘em into the post!
Some technical notes on the video clip:
The video of me doing my push-ups was made with our Canon PowerShot on video-mode. I wanted to do a little work in the contrast range before I posted it so I brought into iMovie, the free video-editing software that comes with the MacOS. But dammit, I couldn’t figure out how to do what I wanted to do, so I ended up bringing it into FinalCutPro, which is much more complicated and is not free. I guess I’m going to have to do a little woodshedding!
The video was shot on auto exposure and auto color balance. Exposure is how much light goes into the camera, and color balance is the way digital cameras account for the various “color temperature” we experience; from the very blue light of an overcast day, to the clean white of normal day light and flash, to the warm amber of light bulbs. These days most cameras have at least five color temp setting: auto, daylight, indoor (tunstun lightbulbs), flourecent, and manual (which you can set by pointing the camera at a white card to give the camera a reference point.
Most of the time Auto is good enough for snapshots and even a lot of more deliberate photography. But if you start to push your photos away from “average” subject, lighting, and/or composition, Auto has a harder time figuring out what the camera is seeing. That’s when the other settings can help you get the results you want.
Shooting across color balance can yield pleasant result too. Some of you might remember the Levi’s commercials with their distinctive blue look. That was achieve by shooting indoor balanced film under outdoor light. You can go the other way and get a nice warm effect. Doing this will also mute colors, which can be frustrating or pleasing, depending.
In the case of the above video, the camera is being fed a bunch of conflicting and changing information. Blueish light coming from a West-facing window, skin tone plus the ceiling to try and interpret with the balance between the two changing as the amount of me in the frame changes. Rather than try and correct this, I boosted it a little in FinalCutPro by increasing the saturation, which exagerates the camera’s misinterpretation of the information it’s getting.
Over used, in find effects like this wearing. I couldn’t finish Maulan Rouge. But a bit here and there, short films, music videos, etc. is fun. A lot of expressiveness can be achieved by playing with color balance, exposure and contrast; both at the time of the exposure and in post. Maybe something to play with while you’re recovering from your push-up test!
Back around the beginning the year I saw some people twittering about 100 push-up. I googled it and found HundredPushups.com, a site that promised to take anyone from zero to one hundred push-up in six weeks.
I like doing physical things, but I’ve never been one to work out just to work out. I’ve just stayed in shape through being active.
Peggy on the other hand is a gym rat from way back . When I met her she was living in apartment with a gym in the basement and was doing something like two hours a day – running on the treadmill, lifting weights. She had a six pack and striated delts.
15 years, two kids, 6 films, several hundred gallons of ice cream and untold case of beer later, both of us have to make a point of staying in shape, otherwise it just doesn’t happen. So we dove into the HundredPushUps.com program –a little competition and camaraderie to keep us going.
Well we kept going, all the way through Week 5, column three. Then I’m not sure what happened. IIRC I think we had a cold make the rounds through the house and knock us out for few days and then once we were out of the habit – well I’m sure you know how that goes.
Anyway, we’re start-up again, and we’d like to invite CameraPlayForCouples.com readers to join us. HundredPushUps.com is a three day a week program, so we’ll be posting 100 push-updates (get it) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Please to consider joining it. We’ll all get fit, strong and sexy together!
Similarly, when I was in school, many of my female photography student colleagues went through self-portrait phases, but I remember this being far less common among male students.
I am still working out in my head how we’re going to be handling other peoples images here at CameraPlayForCouple.com. When you decide to give yourself to someone physically, you make that decision right there and then, for that person, for that time. Photos are different. Making a photograph carries with it a potential loss of control over whom you share yourself with and in what context.
So with that in mind, I am not posting a very very wonderful photograph from 13 Messages. Instead, and for now, I am posting a link:
There are so many things I like about this photo, so very many. But I’m going to save getting into that until we’ve worked out to my satisfaction a policy for posting other people’s photos that is consensual, non-transactional, preserves (as much as possible) peoples’ control over context, while hoping to also preserve the structural integrity of this blog.
So for the time being, click the link and enjoy this very wonderful photo. I defy you to look at it without being hit with a million and one ideas for photos of your own!
Hello and welcome. I am Tony Comstock, and I am a filmmaker and photographer. I want to tell you about two very important things that happened when I first started went “online” about 15 years ago.
The first was that I met my wife Peggy. This was back before the World Wide Web, so when I say I “met” her, what I really mean is I noticed a post she made on a BBS, and I sent her a note, and from there we began to chat using an old unix program called nTalk. There was no exchanging pictures back then, let alone video chatting. The first time I saw her was after months and months of chatting, when I met her for lunch. I liked what I saw, and I guess she did too. We were married two years later.
The other thing that happened around this same time is that the internet went from being a text-only environment to a graphical environment. The first graphical browser, Mosaic, came out, then Netscape, and then the whole internet explosion. And somewhere inside of that explosion, people started posting sexy pictures of themselves, sometimes privately, sometimes in semipublic places, and sometimes out for the whole world to see.
I was fascinated, captivated and turned on by this sudden access to DIY erotic images. In the wake of the Meese Commission, and the unwholesome alliance of social conservatism and the radical anti-sex wing of feminism professional erotic image making had died a slow, ugly death. But these homemade expressions of sexuality, these mementos of sexual joy seemed to offer a way forward.
I thought, “What if I could capture the enthusiasm and authenticity of these pictures, but bring my skills as professional filmmaker to the process?” 15 years later and with 6 well-loved erotic documentary films to our credit I’m pleased with how we answered that question. We’ve proved that sexual imagery doesn’t have to be lurid or phony or tacky, but neither does it have be arid or sterile or joyless.
I’m coming back to do-it-yourself erotic image making for a few reasons. The first is simply that I get a lot of requests from magazines to offer my expertise on this subject. But bad advice is worse than no advice, and they always screw it up, so we’ve stopped saying yes. This blog is a way to go around the gatekeepers (aka magazine editors) and put my ideas about how people can have fun with cameras into the world directly.
Secondly, really amazing things have happened with the technology. I bought a little digital camera last year and was flabbergasted to find out it would also shoot up to 3 hours of full-screen video. This laptop I’m typing on right now came with a suite of software for image editing and video editing that I would have killed for 20 years ago. The tools that ordinary people have in their hands are really impressive, and with just a dash of technical knowledge, a little insight into the “Art of Seeing,” and a sense of play, it’s possible to use these very ordinary tools to make images you’ll treasure; mementos you’ll be glad to have 5, or 10, or 20 years from now.
The last thing is that once again I feel like commercial erotic image making is at a dead end, and once again I feel like the DIY approach offers a way forward; a way to see the collision of sex and image-making as joyful and consensual, and most of all playful. A way to show that making love is as much a part of our life as children’s birthday parties, or weddings, or company softball games, and every bit as worthy of being memorialized with images.
So if you’re nodding your head and saying “Yes, Tony’s right.” please add this blog to your RSS feed, or your blog roll, or tell a friend. If being an independent filmmaker means anything, it means being inventive, and I have 20+ years of inventive ideas that can make memorializing your erotic life easier, more satisfying, and more fun!
I’d also like to invite you to share your ideas and experiences with me, either just privately, or for publication. You can reach me in comments here, or tony at camera play for couples dot com.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ll keep reading!
