Brown Voile Fundoshi: Specimen Number Two.....

Here we have the brown voile fundoshi from previous blogs, but Iʻm back to the discharge dyeing techniques I so adore. It was quite unexpected that the discharge would create a yellow color. 

 

This particular fundoshi is 10 inches wide and has turned into one of my favorites. As Iʻve stated before, this brown voile is very soft and feels great. The roping of it is also easy and becomes quite thin when twisted. Other thicker fabrics donʻt get this thin. 

This photo shoot was a bit ʻimpromptuʻ. I had just come home from spending the day with my brother and his in-laws. The backdrop was still up from the last blogʻs shoot and I thought, why not do another? This will be a classic ʻstripʻ shoot of me getting undressed. 

To get a better sense of the design, we have the ʻfundoshi as artʻ series....

Fundoshi...10 inches, brown and yellow

Fabric....100% cotton voile - very comfortable and cool.

Photography....I used a more natural approach to the lighting, but did give more light to a specific direction to create some shadowing and contrast.  

And now, the rest of the photos.....

Classic White Fundoshi: Now In Living Color.....

Here is the white cotton lawn with color added. Of course, there was no way for me to do my usual discharge technique of removing color from the fabric, so I looked around for other ideas. 

I happened to have some inks I bought for a project that I never got to, so I thought they may be the answer. They almost were......

most of the color washed away, this fundoshi is still semi-sheer

notice there is no blue or green in this fundoshi

Let me explain. Dying fabric has a long history of trial and error and is now an exacting science. In order for most natural fibers to retain color, a fixing agent is used. Depending on the chemicals, the colors can be further manipulated. I have no such chemicals to work with, nor did I want to go down that path. You must treat the fabric, heat the solutions, soak for long periods....it just takes more time than I wanted to spend. It also takes dedicated equipment....such a bother!

I used some glass baking dishes to hold the fabric as I dripped and poured the ink onto it. 

Most of the color I applied washed away in the rinsing process. I expected this. What I didnʻt expect was that the blues washed away the most. This meant the greens turned yellow! 

For this shoot, I am still trying to deal with the white backdrop. I played with the lighting and intensity in a few ways during the shoot. I also created some spot-lights on the backdrop to add a little variety. For some, I used the camera flash, and then I turned it off. You can definitely see the difference by the change of my skin tone. 

Fundoshi...Just a little color....much less than I applied!

Fabric....cotton lawn. Weʻve discussed this before...very lightweight and comfortable. 

Photography....I changed lighting intensity, turned on and off the camera flash, added spots....I was just having fun manipulating things to see what the results would be. And we have the return of the ʻfundoshi as artʻ series.....I know you missed it!

And now, the rest of the photos.....

Fundoshi of Voile...an unexpected part 2.....

I know, I know.....I said we would have a different fundoshi in my last blog....that will come on the 25th. 

This blog has hit one of those imaginary non-verifiable milestones, so I thought of doing a quick shoot to celebrate. Unfortunately, I am currently on vacation, so there is no studio equipment.

Undaunted, there is a futon in the living room of the condo I rented along with a crisp white sheet. No fancy lighting, but I started this with nothing fancy, so here goes......

First up, some hand-held close-ups....

The white sheet is being used since I thought the brown fundoshi would look better against a lighter color.

 

Since the last blog was about putting on a fundoshi, the ʻstoryʻ for this blog is the taking off of fundoshi. My post entitled There’s a lot of putting on and taking off fundoshi around here.... has the most visits, so I didnʻt think you would mind. In close 2nd is Wow....that fundoshi is see-through..., and while this voile is not a sheer as the cheesecloth, there is a certain see-through nature in a couple of shots......again, I didnʻt think you would mind......

After the break, the taking off set....

Fundoshi of Voile, a fabric by any other name.....

Cotton voile by definition is a sheer fabric. The word comes from the French word for veil. The brown voile in this shoot was purchased from fabric.com. Another voile was purchased in a different color, and that one does not share the same amount of sheerness. Unfortunately, it is a crap-shoot when ordering online. The good news is if you are serious about this, most online fabric stores allow you to purchase small swatches so you can order only when you are certain you like the color, fabric, feel, etc. 

It doesnʻt bother me too much, since I like different types of fabric for different reasons. Both voiles that were purchased were light-weight, so made great fundoshi. 

Voile, like last blogʻs lawn, is a plain weave fabric....even pattern with even thickness of threads being used. In theory, the yarns used in voile should be thinner than lawn, making it more sheer. The normal historical order of fabric by thickness is voile (sheer), lawn(semi-sheer) and then batiste (we havenʻt covered that yet). Of course, a manufacturer can call their fabric any old thing they like, so you should not always trust the descriptions being given. 

Today, we are bare-bones. No fancy designs. No trick photography. Back to the black backdrop. I think the brown would look better against the white backdrop, but I was tired of figuring out a way to deal with the wrinkles.

Fundoshi... semi-sheer brown and very comfortable. 

Fabric....brown voile from fabrics.com. This is quickly turning into my favorite fabric to wear.

Photography....black backdrop....no fancy tricks....posing limited to putting on the fundoshi....

The rest of the shoot after the break....

Classic White Fundoshi...now available in cotton lawn....

Yes, it is time for a little fabric lesson. Today, we stray away from all the gauze and cheesecloth into the exciting world of lawn. Put those eyebrows down. We wonʻt be seeing fundoshi made from turf...though that does pose an interesting challenge!

Lawn originally comes to us from Laon in France, which was a major producer of linen lawn. This type of material is what handkerchiefs are generally made from. Lawn is a plain weave fabric made mostly from linen or cotton. This weave is very simple, having each warp and weft thread aligned evenly in a criss-cross pattern. The threads are also even in their weight, so the surface is smooth and untextured. 

You can find lawn in many different colors and patterns. The fabric is a little too thin to use for swimming unless you are in a very liberal environment...in which case, just ditch the fundoshi and swim unveiled!  (note to self:  wet fundoshi...future photo shoot?)

For this shoot, I was playing with very dim lighting. It didnʻt really work out that well, but this is a learning experience. I also had a length of sheer burgundy fabric I was planning to use for curtains and grabbed it as a prop. Todayʻs blog having a mini lesson in fabric, I thought that would be appropriate. 

Fundoshi...crisp and white - a classic.

Fabric....cotton lawn. Lawn has been used for centuries as an undergarment material, but it is thinner than what is used in Japan for fundoshi. Lawn is considered to be ʻsheerʻ or ʻsemi-sheerʻ, depending on how many threads per inch is used. 

Photography....I thought the dimmer light would hide the creases in the white backdrop more than it did. Still learning how to deal with it....maybe some day I will, or Iʻll just pick up a paper backdrop on a roll....

The rest of the shoot and photo notes after the break....

Cheesecloth Fundoshi....is this the final look?

First and most importantly, a very big thanks goes to Ryan at Fundoshi4All - adult for the amazing post highlighting my little corner of the fundoshi world. I know many of you have found me through that post, and I thank you for joining in and Ryan for pointing you here. Perhaps you too have found unique ways to make your own fundoshi. If you have, and want to share, send those photos my way....we'll have a good old fashioned show-and-tell!

Alas, we are now at a final recap of the cheesecloth fundoshi designs. If you have been following along, this is the rather see-through fabric I was initially hesitant to post photos of. The more I wear them, the more I like the feel. I will have to look for more colored cheesecloth to play with.

 


My normal 'fundoshi as art' series was very difficult to work with on these fundoshi, so there are no other shots than in previous blogs. The extremely sheer nature of the fabric would create odd moire patterns against the backdrop, so I had a hard time capturing with the camera what my eyes were seeing. I think I have found ways to solve it in the future, so if I find more cheesecloth, I may be able to take more shots. You can find the photos in the archive if you wish. What all this boils down to is today, we have a group of 'out-takes' that were not previously posted.

These photos come from a few different shoots. We have some from the pre-backdrop days...

One from an 'undressing' shoot I did.....

 And others that were very similar to other photos.....

Fundoshi...hunter green in a few designs. 

Fabric....cheesecloth. You must be very careful when laundering. I always use a laundry bag for my fundoshi, but especially for the cheesecloth. Any snag in the washer or dryer and it will be torn. 

Photography....different shoots, different lighting, different days. I don't know if this shows my skills improving or not......I won't think about it too much!

And after the break......there are even a couple of photos in the group I was originally too modest to post....I'm over that!

Fundoshi of Lavender...one last look.....

Here are the designs for all the lavender fundoshi.  

Here are some of the pictures that didn’t get into the original posts. You can tell by the lighting this was done in two different shoots. One was in low light and quite moody, while the other had a more natural look.

Perhaps this is an appropriate time to talk about the approach I take when editing the photos. I generally use a program called Aperture to make adjustments, but I have been known to use Photoshop as well. Many people don’t realize that digital photos can be a bit ‘fuzzy’ out of the camera. There are simple tools most photo editing programs have to ‘enhance’ or ‘sharpen’ a picture. I use a sharpening process for all my photography. I am thankful to friends that do photography for a living for teaching me this. 

As far as touching up a photograph is concerned, I generally try to keep everything looking as it did during the shoot. This means that my skin tone sometimes will be darker or lighter, depending on the lighting conditions. Since the white backdrop is so unforgiving from a tone and wrinkle perspective, I have been experimenting with blurring techniques to make it softer. You will see some of that in future blogs. 

For the shots that show off the fabric and design, I tend to be a little looser with the manipulation. I will pump up the saturation if that gives the photo a better look. As I’ve said before, I’m not a photo-journalist, so a little artistic fun is a happy thing! 

There is one thing I will manipulate from a ‘touch-up’ perspective. If there is a blemish...okay, I’ll say it out loud....pimple on my posterior, I will remove it. Face it, you don’t really want to see it and I don’t want to show it. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I end up doing a lot of work as it will infect the entire shoot!

Fundoshi....very soft after a couple of washings. For the ‘fundoshi as art’ shots, I like the glow that comes through on the fundoshi that had large amounts of white from the discharge technique. 

Fabric....crinkle gauze. This is quite a good material for photographs. The texture adds some nice pattern and depth.

Photography....A bit more close-ups in this group with a concentration on lighting. 

And now...the rest of the photos....