Happy Birthday to Fundoshi Fabric and Photos! The Designs

And for those of you that enjoy the designs over the past year....here they are.....

Next time on fundoshi, fabric and photos:  After creating all these designs, what happens to those stray strips of material that are floating around? Stay tuned.....

Happy Birthday to Fundoshi Fabric and Photos! The Photos

It has been one year since my first blog. I thank you all for the kind support you have given me. I appreciate each and every one of you that have taken the time to visit my odd experiment is design and photography. This will be a rather long photo essay as I have selected 1 photo from each of my blogs. 

For those keeping track of the year, there have been 78 blogs, over 1750 photos for Blogger with another 230 Tumblr exclusive photos that donʻt really fit in to this blog. There have been about 36 fundoshi designed by myself with a few other non-designed ones thrown in.

Let us get going......

The rest.....

Fundoshi of Purple Gauze - Part One

No pithy or catchy titles on this one, but I have a rather haphazardly fun new design to show off.

 



















Sometimes, you just canʻt think about grids and lines and patterns....just go for it and have fun. This one is a bit more organic looking than other designs Iʻve been showing. The purple gauze doesnʻt turn white when bleach, but has a rather tan looking color - much like natural cotton. 

There is nothing really fancy or clever in this shoot. Just the standard progression of putting the fundoshi on.

You can see I still roll up my fundoshi. This is mostly so I donʻt have any wrinkles in them when I want to use one for a photo shoot.

You canʻt see it yet, but I will be tying this one quite low on my hips. You have probably noticed I vary where I wrap my fundoshi. This is mostly just for the photo shoots. When wearing fundoshi for every day use, I simply tie it around my natural waistline.

One last thing....look for the fancy knot on this one....let me know your thoughts!

fundoshi…purple organic design

fabric...100% gauze - yes, gauze again.....get some, you will like it!

photography…Basic lighting, basic posing, basic angles...nothing much to say.....


Keep going.......

Black Voile Fundoshi - The White Shoot - Part One

Yes, the title is a bit confusing. Before going any further, here is the new design on this ever so lovely voile fundoshi.

 



















It is a simple enough design - a single stripe down the center, bordered by hand painted circles. As you can see above (and from other black voile fundoshi blogs), this particular fundoshi is quite sheer. Of course, when the fundoshi is completely wrapped and tied, there is a double-up of fabric, so wearing it is a bit more modest.

Now for the ʻWhite Shootʻ reference. I used my new white vinyl backdrop for this. I also used as much light as I have. My vision was to blur the lines between the backdrop my body.

Some of the shots came out better than others for this. I then used my photo editing programs to slightly desaturate my skin tones and pumped up the exposure a little. This helped achieve the look I wanted.

Overall, I am please with how these turned out. 

fundoshi…black with a fun design

fabric...100% cotton voile. Due to the sheerness of the fabric, I had a ton of fun taking photos of just the fundoshi. You will find more than the usual amount of non-body shots.

photography…extra bright to desaturate color

To the rest of the grouping.....

Gauze Fundoshi - A Good Use of White - Part Two

White on White on White - even more fun.....

As I said before, it is hard to see the color on this particular fundoshi, especially with the lighting and diffusion going on in the setup. So here is a closeup of the fundoshi.

In some of the more details shots, the plastic drop looks like an old glass pane.

On to more.....

Purple Voile Fundoshi - A Dimly Lit Life - Part One

All these new designs......what a treat! Another purple voile fundoshi to show off.

This is a different take on the simple stripes I did on the orange gauze fundoshi. In this pattern, I did the stripes at a diagonal. The fundoshi was folded in fourths, which then created the chevron pattern. Depending on the layer of the fold, the discharge solution hit the fabric harder, making the nice transitions between white and blue.

Have I ever mentioned how comfortable voile it, especially on a hot day? The fabric has a cool feel to it, much like a bed sheet. The main difference is that voile is a bit more sheer than most bed sheets. 

As you can see, I went for a dark mood for this one. My skin looks so much more tan when I dim the lights and add a bit of colored gels!

fundoshi…purple striped pattern

fabric...100% cotton voile

photography…dark and perhaps a bit contemplative

Orange Gauze Fundoshi - The Test - Part One

Orange fundoshi in a new design. You can easily do this design with a brush - just simple stripes!

 



















What test could I possibly be speaking of?

Generally speaking, I do about 3 or 4 fundoshi shoots within a weekend. This gives me time to edit the photos and schedule the blogs without being in a rush.

For the current crop of photos starting with the white on white on white shoot, I did 6 fundoshi and 2 fundoshi related shoots in the span of 2 days. Doing it this way minimizes the setup and breakdown time of the backdrops, lights, etc. Doing so many in 2 days also meant my creative juices seemed to be draining from a posing perspective. I have to face it, there are just so many ways I have of positioning my body and wrapping a fundoshi to appear interesting. So I gave myself the following challenge:  Can I put on and take off a fundoshi without standing? 

You will notice I am on a white background. This is a new one for me to use and is made of vinyl. It shows up much better when out of focus.

It also has a much neater appearance. The only issue is if I am too close to it, there are some manufacturing indentations that show up. Iʻm hoping these will go away over time.

I quickly found that while I tried to maintain the ʻno standingʻ rule, I did have to get on my knees a couple of times....

fundoshi…bright orange - a happy color!

fabric...100% cotton gauze

photography…a shoot trying to mimic normal lighting conditions

Keep going......