Red Batiste Fundoshi - A New Shoot Part 2

Part 2 of the Red Batiste Fundoshi shoot with the customary 'taking it off' sequence.

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Plastic Fundoshi - An Experiment

For this shoot, I tried something a bit different. Fair warning....a single sheet of this plastic fundoshi is very, very, very, very revealing....there - you are warned.

I was experimenting with a backdrop for the underwear series I have been doing on my tumblr (fundoshi alan's space) and while cutting up strips of a thick plastic I sometimes use as a backdrop, I couldn't help but notice how similar the strips were to fundoshi.  The plastic is quite thick, so it isn't as manipulative as fabric, and some of the edges did cut into my delicate areas, so there is no way this will be a 'wearable' piece of clothing, but it was a fun experiment. Like the recent red batiste and orange gauze, there are also enough photos left over for a couple of 'rehash' manipulations, so if you like this experiment, there will be more to see in the future!

Above and to the right, the photo as it came out of the camera. I knew I wanted to get a dark, murky, midnight type of feel, so I started with a black backdrop with the strips of plastic hanging in front of it. I played with the exposure a bit by increasing the blacks (by heaps and bounds) and the brightness (just by a little).

Next up was to play with the contrast and curves which resulted in the photo to the left. The newer filters I rarely have used were applied next, polarize and intensify contrast. 

This left me the base photo I was looking for to then turn it into a black and white that had a dark mid-tone and highlighted the light hitting the plastic. While applying the look to the photos, I felt something subtle was missing, so I removed about 20% of the black and white filter, leaving just a hint of color. While this wasn't what I intended, I liked it better, so that is what you now see!

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Orange Gauze - Fastened Like a Jock Strap

I do like orange, so decided that even though there is no design on this fundoshi, I would show it off! I found an instruction diagram on tumblr on how to tie a fundoshi like a jock strap and thought it was interesting. I tried to do that here. I probably should have practiced a bit first and I'm not quite sure I got it right!  It also didn't seem to have good 'staying' power and started to fall off almost immediately.  Maybe I'll give it another go in the future and see if I can work the kinks out.


To the right is the original shot with a white background. I knew I wanted to punch it up a bit to bring out the orange, so the first thing I did was to warm up the lighting to add some blues for contrast, and increased the exposure.

I then added a bit of contrast and turned up the saturation. Playing with the curves filter a bit resulted in an even more intense look.

                                                                              

Then, it was on to some filters I rarely use, but I like the result. The polarize filter was applied to the right, then an 'intensify contrast' filter to the left. I stopped, as this gave me the look I was after.

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Red Batiste Fundoshi - A New Shoot

After quite a while, I finally set up my home studio and took some shots with fundoshi. I don't have many designs left that haven't been shown already, but did find a couple and have a few non-designed (plain is such a plain word) fundoshi that haven't been seen yet. Here is the first set to show - a red batiste fundoshi with a swirly type design. 

The design is made by taking a small strip of fabric and soaking it in a bleach solution. It is then placed onto the fundoshi, rather haphazardly and left to do its magic! For the photos, I did know I wanted to get a blow-out effect, so used the white backdrop and as many lights as I could muster and keep cool at the same time!  As you can see from the first photo, brightness was not exactly achieved. That's okay.....post production, here I come!  That also means there are a bunch of natural looking photos left over for some fun 'rehash' blogs! The first thing I did was to simply play with the light temperature, making it a bit cooler. 

Next up was to play with the exposure and contrast. 

Next up, I added a black and white filter set at about 80%. This left the red as the main color focus in the shot. I then faded the entire photo just a little for the final result.

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