Thousands of photographs of Bettie Page. Just plug in her name and search for images and you will find thousands of Bettie.

Why two posts? This is where Bettie belongs being posted, but most read the general forum.

One can see the hand of John Willie here, so appropriate to her and his collaborations.

(Download)

Bettie's Grave Marker.

It is Bettie Page's Birthday. One of the three great iconic persons of the mid 20th century, The King (Elvis), Marilyn Monroe and Bettie.

Bettie Page, Queen of Pin Ups.

(Download)

Grave Marker.

Much of what is here and what you will find out in the internet world is not informed by photographers who used film and filters. So what you get are loads of B&W images that look like digital B&W converted images. If that is what you want then just follow along the suggestions that are being offered.

Here is a note, Ansel Adams almost exclusively used a Wratten # 15 filter for his landscape images. Rarely (as in hens teeth) did he use a Wratten 25 (deep red, also called a Tri-Color Red Filter). He also used Type B sensitive films (Kodak Pancro Press Type B film), which favored the warm end of the spectrum, not the cool end of the light sensitive end.

One of the single most critical aspects of B&W fine art work is summed up in the well know statement in the digital world (to B&W printmakers) "A print is not finished until it is toned". Once a digital image is processed, one of the critical steps in mannaging that B&W image is to de-saturate the images. This way you can use the 'color sliders' to effect the 'color' of the final image, which is the soul of the image. Adams, Westons, and many others would never release an image untill it is toned.

More about toning a digital image to a B&W image. Photoshop is best understood as being akin to a game of chess. The first move (in Photoshop, the first action) sets the tone and the final out come of that game (image). In most digital images, one of the last steps is to 'sharpen' (or not) and that is done with the unsharp mask.

Here are two quick toned B&W images from a figure shoot (yes, she is dressed in lingerie, but still dressed) The first is adjusted for a typical sepia tone with a follow up brown toner (both Kodak products). The second is a purely Brown Toner effect (again Kodak Brown Toner right off the shelf with silver gelatine paper print in standard Kodak Dektol developer type materials.

I can image these results because I had spent many hours doing this type of B&W print making in and after the darkroom.

Sepia toner was much favored over Brown Toner because of the warm color of the sepia toner, while the 'warm' tones of Kodak Brown toner favored the land scape type of image. Both had their use. It is important to get that B&W 'feeling' that toning an image had.

A typical sepia tone with a follow up brown toner (both Kodak products).

(Download)

A purely Brown Toner effect.

(Download)

Good suggestion, right back at you.

Not really and not the point. This 'question' has been raised on many sites. I knew it was a leading 'question' that is vary typical. You can find this sort of thing in the observations and the inqurios of women who model for photographers on many sites like Model Mayhem.

There are 'models' like Liz Ashly (Houston) and Mosh (Eastern Seaboard) who are very active in the photographic industry who are both articulate and well educated in the evolution of the photographic world. Liz has a masters in art history while Mosh holds a PhD in psychology. These women shape and give deeper meaning to what is occurring in the world of photography. Imagin the world of fashion and photography without the life and persona of Coco Channel. To say she was merely a fashion designer is to not understand the transformation of culture in the past century. These women are as I have said, the pathfinders of the human element and cultural condition of our modern world.

That is what I was responding to, the timelessness of how women are compelled to operate in a world dominated by the male psyche. There are many aspects to all of this, and it is critical to understand what is going on as you view and unpack the times in which you live. That is the major issue and one can ignore all of it and just keep moving in the apparent vacuum of one's existence, that is fine for most but not for a small portion of us.

As always astute observation of information for the history of this site, thanks for this information.

Well, her's is not the only time this question has been asked by a woman to this forum. It also does not alter the reality for an information request. Of course, you would never reply to a request for insight to the subject of photography, beneath you, I guess. I will never understand the testosterone driven responses on this site, though it is often rampant.

Tasha, I chaired the department of photography in San Antonio, Texas at the Southwest School of Art. My long experiences with students revealed certain great insights to teaching participants to both basic and advanced classes and workshops. What I learned as an educator in the field of photography is that women and men have very different interests in how women approach photography and how a woman deals with photographic ideas and issues.

Women in general are not driven by the technology nor the mechanics of the photographic experience. Books to study and review would be the life of two of the most dynamic women who ever made their mark in the area of photography. First Juliet Margret Cameron and then Margret Bourk-White are two of the truly greats historically. A contemporary of the modern 20th Centry was Imogene Cunningham. There are of course others, but these women not only carved out powerful niches in photography, they changed the way all photographers respond to the making of photographic images.

Do not get caught up in the technology and skill craft of photography, that will come as you begin to define what and where you find your path in the creative pursuit of the creation of images.

Women have been defining and have been the great pathfinders of photography, they have lead the way and shown men what the art of photography really can be. Personally, I watched Imogene Cunningham mold and direct the F64 group and help Ansel Adams to clarify his path to greatness. Portraiture would not be what it is today if it were not for Juliet Margret Cameron. A position held by greats like Arnold Newman. Photojournalism would never have been what it became in the 20th century but for Bourk-White, she remolded that approach in ways that are still taught today.

Oddly enough, the great world of fashion photography was as much created by the women who modeled for the many great male photographers of the post World War era of the 40's and 50's and into today. Models are not just 'clothes horses' for fashion, they educated and trained the photographers and shifted the idea of the modern ideas of portraiture to shift from head and shoulders' presentation to the face as the defining power of the human conditions, clothes here then part of the identity of the face of humanity, the individual.

Women are truly at the cross roads of defining our culture and that culture is so bound to photography and the photographic experance that it has become the primary point of what humanity is and will be.

Remember this quote from over a hundred years ago, "The illiterates of the future will not be those who cannot read, rather it will be they who cannot make a photograph."

Stop this nonsense!
Now everyone will think that a rteal photographer and REAL model can make great images.
Keep this up and people will think you can do good work!

2:30, sun is back, the cats are all sleeping curled up, bugs are back flying around again.

Nothing new.

By-by.

It is now 1:30PM and it looks like sunset in the garden. The animals are all under cover and only humans are making noise. Over cast and cool(not the 82F predicted). Sky is over cast, an no rain. Every once in awhile there is clearing of the cloud cover with a bit of dull blue sky, but that is disappearing. Maybe night-night and I will get a view of the reported comet that supposed to show up. Getting like night in the garden just like the past two times. Define sweater weather!

It will be cool tomorrow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7C4CMf731w

It's 7:30AM and this is Mission Road Studio.

At7:30AM there should be a vehicle passing the front of my studio about every 5 seconds, today the vehicles are about two a minute, I guess the Texas Department of Safety got the message to everyone, "It's not safe to drive during the eclipse.

Vehicles on 90/I-10 are way down from normal, that interstate is visible from the front parking lot of the studio.

I took water and kitty food (dry) out to the garden cats (about four, but cat visitations from the area around would be a few more) cats are of great help to keep the rat population down as I'm surrounded by old industrial buildings, Rosevelt Park across the street with the wonderfully vermin infested San Antonio River Walk and hiking trails. Cats are hunter-destroyers so my garden is a clean happy place, and there pretty cute!

The weather report says heavy overcast with rain from 11:30 to 4PM. Stupid Garden! Intermittent light thin clouds with lots of powder blue shy showing through. That garden here on the South Side missed the memo again.

I will post more as the day goes on and perhaps I will make this a real photo post with an image or two. Of course, being a naughty boy, if Ms. VADA shows up and happens to fall out of her clothes, as is often the case with her, I will add a link to the "NUDE" section, just saying!

TTFN (Ta ta For Now)!

Why? I like-a-the Leica. I'm 75 and started photography at 14 with a IIIc and have never said good by. I do now use a Sony A7 body, but the optics are all Leica. The Sony is an excellent choice for Leica optics. What better test for the Sony body than the Leica Summarex 8.5cm f1.5 black paint, the one shown is the post WW II lens, mine is a German Military edition from 1932 (before the lens could be sold or allowed outside Nazi Germany except in the hands of German military hands).

After all, it is the optics that make the image, not the camera body.

(Download)