Mike Stacey

HANA - PORTRAITS

Z6, F1.8, 50mm, 1/320, ISO 800.

WHAT A MIX

Ffs hope you get it.

TIME TO UNPRETEND

I'm feelin' rough, I'm feelin' raw
I'm in the prime of my life...

you know the song.

Tech that doesn't matter anyway but some like it:

Z6

ISO 1250

usually around 1/50s

f2.8 mostly

50mm

Workflow: unplanned, uncalculated and dynamic. All over very quickly.

QUOTE

Her exact words were "look this pussy is mine"

BERLIN LIGHT

There are many more of Agnes and I'm still finishing the set of Agnes and Aurora together as a duo.

DOMESTIC BLISS + PLANTS

The rest of the set with Gosia in Kraków. The first part of this shoot is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/48822652 

There's a couple of images still to post - soon :)

DUO - SENSUAL, HANA & AURORA

Duos really are fun as there are so many possible compositions.

EDEN?

From Monday with Hana and Aurora.

I shot 4 sets: solo Hana, solo Aurora and 2 duos of both of them. There's a set of images for each.

IMPERFECTION

Shot in Krakow last week with Gosia. More coming.

F100
Fuji Superia 400
Kodak Ultramax 400
Nikon 50mm f1.8
Editing: none

BTS - HANA & AURORA

Yesterday I shot some stuff for Hana and Aurora along with another local photographer - Maciej: https://instagram.com/more.than.photo.zakrzewski

Must admit I wasn’t feeling too inspired yesterday after the all-nighter two nights before - that was Saturday night and were still feeling under the weather today, which is Tuesday.

Anyway, we shot in a local place which has three rooms and lots of...

NASTY SMOKER AND BREAST

A 24 hour night.

LINGERIE ON THE BEACH

Here’s the little video of some lingerie on the beach modelled rather well by Aurora.

Let me know if you’d like to see more clips/videos like this, I have a lot of them!

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zmfhh4q9prz1q8/Video%2017-10-20%2C%206%2022%2000%20pm.mov?dl=0

SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT

“Show me what you got then we can go to the shop.” - PM, 25/2/2020

Fuck fancy editing. Just been looking at model photos from the 80s and 90s - Helmet Newton and Avedon mainly. We had better taste back then. It wasn’t about perfection at all. It was about content - and how the content conveyed feeling and mood, same as with paintings for example.

ZAMKOWA

A few shots of Kasia - https://instagram.com/malinova_posing and Tatiana - https://instagram.com/tatimieczkowska which I took in the Poznan AIRBNB we stayed in a few weeks ago prior to the German tour.

35mm PORTRAITS

F100
50mm 1.8

IT'S PINK

yes it is.

F100, Kodak GC400, most shots on a 1980's 35mm manual focus lens, a couple using the plastic crap 50mm f1.8.

Fuck smooth perfect model imagery.

IF I WORKED FULL TIME ON EDITING FOR A WEEK...

...I might have quite a few sets of images to show. Fact is, this isn't my job, I'm a full time English teacher and the income I earn from photography is minuscule. Actually the money I earn from teaching is minuscule too. Anyway, point is that during February I shot thousands of images through Germany and also in Poznan. Right now we’re shooting in Krakow.

There are some amazing sets of work to show you, just allow me some time to get them edited properly. Some of the images are in ...

IT'S PINK - PREVIEW

A random cute set we shot recently on 35mm film.

BATH TIME

6 hours in the bath.

IS COOL

something that drives your work?

Everyone has their own definition of what ‘cool’ is. It can be a powerful motivating factor.

This was a test shot and I asked Gosia not to light the cigarette.

Model: Gosia

https://instagram.com/himykk?igshid=1ccs4vu5k6767

KRAKÓW

A test shot on digital from this morning's shoot with Gosia. Full set soon.

STUTTGART NUDES

Shot on 35mm. No meta data thankfully so I don’t remember the settings.

DRESDEN LIGHT II

Two more on medium format film from the chair in Dresden. The first two images and details are here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/48246228

These were shot with my recent figure modelling work in mind. Body crops showing form with nice light. They’ll be seen as sexual primarily because they are photographs. Also because there’s some lingerie. Weird eh? Or not? What do you think?

I’d love to ...

BERLIN APARTMENT

Agnes and Aurora, Berlin 2 weeks ago. The rest of the set is pretty cool and coming soon.

Tech: Z6, 50mm @f2 (second shot) - f4(second shot), 1/500s, ISO 1000. 

Shooting duos is challenging. Fast composition and direction to two people is much harder than with one and I always need to remind myself to stop down more as I usually shoot wide open. Focus on the second shot was lucky (only f2) and only due to the camera angle and plane of focus. ...

DRESDEN LIGHT

Shot in a wonderful little apartment we had in Dresden. I shot these from just outside on the small balcony, holding the glass door over part of the frames with one hand and the Pentax brick in the other. That kind of thing is easy with any other camera, but it took a few goes before I had everything steady enough to hit the shutter. To make things more challenging it’s hard even with two hands to prevent image blur from the huge shutter slap on the Pentax, so I’m super happy these worked...

NO PRETENDERS

Tech: ISO 2500, Z6, 50mm @ f2.

But what does tech matter with images like these? Really nothing. These could have been shot with almost any camera. The final image is a result of photographer-model interaction, understanding and vision.

PORTRAITS OF AGNES

These were taken between sets. Of course I asked Agnes if she was OK with me snapping unposed shots, and for me these are some of the best images I got, as usual.

Tech: Z6, ISO 1000, f2 (50mm f1.8), 1/60s

HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE THE ER&TICA GENRE?

For fuck sake, I typed this article and Patreon provided a message saying I had used language that is not allowed here. So you're not even allowed to have a discussion - an intelligent conversation about topics like P&RN and ERO^ICA. Hence you see some edits to those words in this article....

Do you think erotica should be explicit, like p%rn? Or is erotica more subtle? I thought about this a lot years ago as I saw a lot of "artistic nude" photography which...

LEIPZIG

My editing process for digital images is essentially based around careful destruction of the file. Digital images for me are too perfect, they're not real and they don’t carry the story very well at all. There's all sorts of important aspects of analog that need to be 'created' (destroyed) given a perfect digital file to begin with. 

Focus: careful curve contrast adjustments. Analog normally has raised blacks for example and is flatter in mid tones and highlights...

SHARDS

First image from a set we shot two days ago in Stuttgart. I love the set, just my thing.

I lit it with a large floor mirror angled to the window and projecting its light along the edge of the couch and wall. It was fucking challenging balancing this 1.5m mirror with one arm whilst shooting with the other. On top of that, I needed the images to have life and story, so it meant that Aurora needed to flow pose, nothing too stationary and me needing to shoot the movement.

Tech...