Welcome to our Nude No. 47
December 2024
Aptly titled “SKIN”. Interesting that a magazine capturing fine art nudes would theme an issue “skin”, as isn’t that what it’s all about? You might think so however, there is so much that goes into the photo and the art and the technical expertise that manifests the most important foundation of our pictorials. And that is understanding how skin and light
play against each other to create natural beauty.
So many creatives in the field of photography struggle with color toning and grading of skin, given the near infinite shades human skin comes in. To do so accurately, in color-graded photos, it’s crucial to understand the concept and manifestations of color itself.
The colors captured in photos are influenced by both the exposure of the frame and the white balance. If the photo is underexposed or overexposed, the skin tones will be too dark or too bright to look true to life. The overall white balance setting of the image affects the skin tones, especially with dark skin. If the overall tone of the photo is too cool or blue, the skin tone will appear to be cool and can change the appearance from what is in reality, warm skin tone to an inaccurately cooler skin tone or vice versa. Light in photography refers to how the light source, natural or artificial and how the position of the light source relates to your subject. The position and quality of light can affect any number of things in your final image, from clarity to tone to emotion and so much more.
The standard beauty look for portraits dating back decades now has been that poreless porcelain look of ‘perfection’ which was celebrated and promoted through a style of post processing. That look has been, or is currently being, usurped by something different; something better: Skin that looks texture-full, radiant and supple, and essentially ‘real’, or
at least significantly more real.
The trend is toward the natural, if not completely raw, and that’s something to be embraced. The world no longer wants to look at an image of a person that we know looks 2 dimensional, we want texture, and we want to be able to almost feel it the emotion, the light, and the beauty of the human form.
We hope that this issue of “SKIN” showcases all the above. And as always, thank you to the audience we appreciate your patronage.
Sidonie Adiam Danut
Writer
NUDE Magazine
IG @sidonead