Girl with Plums

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This tutorial is especially for NYMF's Birthday. Here, you will learn all the details of creating that very “perfect” shot: the concept, the choice of colors, the process of photo creation, and photo processing.

I'm often asked about the secret of my photos. Upon numerous requests, I've prepared a video-tutorial where I use my Lady with Plums photo to illustrate my approach to creating a “perfect” shot.

Concept
My idea was to take a photo of a charming “country girl” who’d collected plums in the hemline of her dress and poured them out into a basket. The girl is supposed to be wearing a light and comfortable open dress emphasizing her sexy body, and the girl herself should be natural and plump, with her hair being plum-black and thick.

She has to look as ripe, juicy, and sweet as the plums she collected. Besides, it would be great to show dynamics, for instance, plums in motion. The girl is supposed to be shown amidst bright-green plants and in warm sunlight (contre-jour lighting). The general mood of the photo is the Garden of Eden.

Inspiration
Many of my photos are based on distant childhood memories – like this one, for instance. I remember when I was a teenager, I used to collect fallen juicy apples in my country house and put them in my shirt, which could fit more than 10 pieces! Then, holding them with my hand, I carried them home and poured them onto the table. I thought it would be a great idea for a photo.

Following the requirements of my style, I had to replace a boy with a juicy girl, a boy’s ripped shirt with a sexy country dress. Besides, apples, which are frequently found in my photos, can be replaced with plums – juicy, ripe, and sweet, that associate plums with the girl.

Choice of color
This photo was supposed to show the 80s-90s. It was the era of film cameras giving a pleasant “soft” picture, moderately bright colors, no excessive contrast, and sharpness. After searching the Internet for numerous photos of women in a country house (back in the 80s and 90s), I picked out a photo I took as an approximate guideline for color rendition.

Outfits
Considering the fact that I always reduce the bright color of greenery to greenish yellow (something like autumn leaves that have lost their juiciness), the color of the dress should perfectly match this foliage.

Of course, the style of the dress had to comply with the original concept, i.e., to emphasize the girl’s beautiful body, partially exposing some of its parts. For the photoshoot, I took three dresses of different colors – blue with white flower print, gray, and pink. The blue dress didn’t really match the color of the foliage; white spots of the flower print drew excessive attention, and the gray dress didn’t match the warm atmosphere of the photo and looked gloomy. The pink jersey dress looked very efficient against greenish-yellow foliage, as it outlined the girl’s body and highlighted the warm atmosphere of the photo. To make the dress fit tight on the girl’s body, I gathered extra fabric in several places (to make the dress tighten to the body) and fastened the fabric with three regular clothespins.

Background
In this case, the lower left part of the composition (a table with accessories) is just as important as the background.

An old vintage basket where a girl is putting plums, a bowl with pitted plums (the color of the bowl was red-purple, but when I retouched the photo, I made it similar to the color of the dress, and this decision made the photo even more harmonious), a knife, leaves, cut plums - all these details enrich the photo and explain why the girl is pouring the plums into the basket and what’s going to happen next. Such details make the photo more interesting, as they help the viewer see the whole plot and better understand the message the photographer wanted to communicate. The background, it shows the mid-blurred country house, including trees, greenery, bushes, and flowers.

Hair and make-up
The girl is working, and she surely feels comfortable with her hair tied in a braid or a ponytail, as it doesn’t bother her by falling on her face. In this case, her hair was tied with a hair elastic at the back of her head, and her lush ponytail fell on her neck and shoulders.

At the same time, the girl's face is open. A small hair curl is hanging down in front of her forehead; the lock is illuminated with light that makes it half-transparent, just like the leaves around. I find it gorgeous. Her make-up is very light, natural, and not bright. It suits a person working in a hot summer garden.

Light
The photo was taken on a sunny day, at around 6 pm (two hours before sunset). The lighting on the left-hand side is contre-jour; penetrating the foliage, it lies beautifully on the girl’s arms, dress and hair.

On the right-hand side, the reflector highlights the model in such a way that the skin not exposed to the light doesn’t look gray or too dark. Contre-jour lighting, in this case, falls beautifully on the plums and the table and makes the foliage see-through. All this enhances impressions from the photo and emphasizes its warm sunny mood, airiness, and lightness.

Posing
The girl is slightly leaning forward and really pouring the plums from the hemline of her dress into the basket. On the one hand, this pose is the most comfortable for her, and on the other hand, it looks outstanding in the shot.

The girl pulls on the dress from below; this shows perfectly the hips and buttocks and outlines beautiful curves, which look very sexy. Her gaze, of course, is directed to the basket with plums, as she has to control the process and not let plums fall down to the ground. Her cheek is turned to the camera at a 90-degree angle, i.e., completely sidewise. In this case, the best pose was found almost immediately.

Camera and optics
Nikon D750, Nikkor 85 1.8D, ISO 100, F4, 1/400.

Depth of field
The depth of field was chosen in such a way that the girl and the table with the basket and other details were in focus. The background with all the trees, bushes, and foliage is very blurred, but at the same time, it is still understandable (readable). If the background were sharper, then due to a large amount of light, dark, and color spots, the background would be very “colorful” and distract the viewer's attention excessively. 

If the aperture was too open (for example, F2), the model would have been partially out of focus, just like all the details on the table. The background would have been too blurred. Therefore, it would have been impossible to see its separate elements, for instance, flowers.

Shooting angle
The girl’s face is shot sidewise, but the body is turned towards the camera to demonstrate a beautiful low neckline, half-naked breast, the other arm, and thighs. The camera was positioned around the level of the neck. If the camera had been moved more to the right, the breast, the other arm, and the other leg would have been invisible, which would have made the photo more primitive and flatter. If the camera had been moved more to the left, we wouldn’t have seen a beautiful transition from the waist to the buttock, which is one of the sexiest parts of this shot.

Cropping
The photo was planned to be vertical, as I wanted to take a close-up view of the standing girl. The low border of the shot is a bit lower than where the legs are hidden behind the bench, and you can see that the basket is standing on the bench. If the cropping was higher, I should have cropped the girl’s legs, and it would have been unclear where the basket was standing. The shot is cropped on the left behind the bowl, and you can see a cutting board with cut plums. Cropping over the bowl would have been ugly, and the shot would have been too narrow. It doesn’t make sense to make the table bigger, as the shot has more than enough details. The photo is cropped on the right in such a way that some space was left near the buttocks. It looks very harmonious. Cropping the top was solely my decision, as all the details above the girl’s head include similar leaves and twigs.

Expression
The model’s emotions in this photo are significant; her pleasant smile tells us that she’s upbeat and happy with what she’s doing.

In other words, she rather takes working in the garden as a pleasant activity than as tedious work, and we communicate this message to the viewer via the right emotions. This mood is well-conveyed to the viewer, which makes the photo even warmer and “tastier.” If the girl’s face was serious, if she wasn’t smiling, the mood of the photo would have been very different. You’d think it’s just her daily routine, but she’s tired and exhausted. Of course, in this case, the photo wouldn’t have been so nice and sweet. This again emphasizes the importance of the model’s emotions in the photo.

Post-processing
While retouching the photo, I paid special attention to making similar colors in many elements in the frame, for example, spots on the leaves, flowers in the background, and cut plums – all in the same orange shades. The dress the girl was wearing, the bowl, and the blush on her cheeks had the same orange shades. Hair, plums, and dark basket rods also have similar shades. This way, I removed from the photo unnecessary colors and shades and made the photo less technicolor yet more pleasant and readable to the eyes. Color correction of the entire photo matched my own retouching style – calm, non-bright colors, warm summer shades, retro-accent approximated to the original country film photography.

You can view and download the high-quality “Girl with Plums”  photo to your smartphone from the NYMF photo gallery.