New Photos

[heelman500 25]

I have put some new photos into my gallery, of me wearing some jeans and a selection of different shoes. I have used my new camera on self time, so I hope that they look ok, I do have some more to put up, but I think that is enough to start with. Any comments let me know, and I will hopefully soon get some pics of me out and about in heels

Mrs heelman is on a downer about my shoe collection at the moment, but its amazing what £40 to go shopping with can do to change "Its the shoes or me!" to "I suppose I will have to put up with it!"

I dont normally give in to her demanding ways, but I just cant be bothered with the argument at the moment (Early shifts and I am dead tired!)

[FastFreddy2 282]

I have put some new photos into my gallery, of me wearing some jeans and a selection of different shoes. I have used my new camera on self time, so I hope that they look ok, I do have some more to put up, but I think that is enough to start with. Any comments let me know, and I will hopefully soon get some pics of me out and about in heels

The pic's are great, and significantly better quality over the initial batch. The shoes are more easily 'read' from the side, and the flash bouncing off the mirror didn't help. 10/10. :-(

Mrs heelman is on a downer about my shoe collection at the moment, but its amazing what £40 to go shopping with can do to change "Its the shoes or me!" to "I suppose I will have to put up with it!"

I dont normally give in to her demanding ways, but I just cant be bothered with the argument at the moment (Early shifts and I am dead tired!)

I have to admit to experiencing the same problem(s) here.

Without doubt my interest in heels is a little obsessive [little?] and I think other folk in our lives can sometimes feel like they have to compete for our attention, which of course is never a good situation....

I'm always looking for ways to include herself, and her interest in all things 'shoes' often does help. I think we all need to be a bit watchful that the goodwill we enjoy, [when we enjoy it], isn't taken for granted. Once or twice I've realised that my interest has taken priority where perhaps it shouldn't. [The old over-compensation glitch.]

An interest in trainspotting would doubtless be a struggle to share. An interest in cars, especially an expensive sports car marque, might be quite an easy one to get a spouse involved with - probably. And at first look, a shared interest in footwear might seem an easy interest to share too, but mostly easier if it's the woman doing the wearing. Obviously.

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[shyguy 15]

Some great looking shoes among your latest photos. Look forward to seeing the look for your out and about photos.

[heelman500 25]

Thanks for the positive comments guys, I am starting to get the hang of photos to be uploaded. The spare room now has halogen lights and white walls ready to be used as a studio her indoors thinks its been "Made over"

I have wanted to do a photography course for a while but its been a case of 1. no time and 2. no cash. i am detemined to have a go soon though and hopefully improve the quality of pictures that I am taking.

Freddy,

I know it a real pain and I just wish that my wife would decide one way or another what she thinks about my heels..... I have a feeling that she complains when she thinks she will get something out of it (Wrong Idea!) I am not that daft!

But she did let me take some oics of her in her boots and they are in my gallery, so we must be having a good day!

[FastFreddy2 282]

Thanks for the positive comments guys, I am starting to get the hang of photos to be uploaded. The spare room now has halogen lights and white walls ready to be used as a studio her indoors thinks its been "Made over"

I have wanted to do a photography course for a while but its been a case of 1. no time and 2. no cash. i am detemined to have a go soon though and hopefully improve the quality of pictures that I am taking.

The quality has improved significantly.

I'm qualified, and have a full portable studio ..... But you're doing fine without all that gear.

You've cracked the perspective problem by having the camera positioned lower [between hip and knee maybe?] And not tried to get too much in with the camera quite close [which will make the closest objects to the camera seem disproportionately larger].

Two other common problems with this type of photography ..... Contrast control, and modelling. Modelling is especially a problem with shiny objects......

Contrast....

This is typified by trying to get detail out of (say) black shoes, with white or cream objects in the background. [Or worse, shiny highlights.] The cameras 'auto' feature, even if it has bias control, will average out the brightness levels. Not such a big problem with digital like it was with film ..... But whites [highlights] can still get blown out, and blacks don't contain any detail because they are black/black. Not so bad with coloured objects, but very light detail and dark detail can be lost if your contrast range is great.

Shiny objects .....

These might be leather or PU/plastic shoes, and black patent the worst.....

Reflected light, when that light is from a single small bright source, [ie flash] will produce spectral highlights when reflected from shiny objects. Physically this is likely from any non flat surface, but shiny objects reflecting bright light, produce high contrast in pictures. This means the highlights trick the camera into thinking there's lots of light, and the camera reacts by underexposing what will become the darkened parts of the image. Like >> here <<

The solution, is to use a large reflector to light your image. As much of the shiny material will see this, it'll lighten up the whole shiny area, and that will give shape and form to your subject. A cheap suitable reflector for this might be a polystyrene ceiling tile, or bit of polystyrene furniture packing. Have another look at >> these <<

Both are patent. Both have highlights blown out by the reflection of the window lighting up the room. But ..... I've got them sitting on white paper, and using some of this to reflect back light that was itself reflected off the white background. Okay, there's no longer any true blacks there, [or very very little] but my aim was to show detailing on the shoes, so I also over-exposed the image too. Thing is - you can see detail in the picture, your eyes would struggle to see in most situations.

Using a large reflector for a light source can be quite flattering to the skin too. [Washes out some imperfections, and dulls skin blemishes. ] In a studio you might use a large white 'tent' as a main light, and a reflector to reduce the modelling to a minimum. Helmut Newton [my hero] used to use a ring-flash for fashion shoots, which by design, would remove all modelling as the light source came from 360 degrees. Can't find any links that don't involve high heels, and nudity.

Freddy,

I know it a real pain and I just wish that my wife would decide one way or another what she thinks about my heels..... I have a feeling that she complains when she thinks she will get something out of it (Wrong Idea!) I am not that daft!

But she did let me take some oics of her in her boots and they are in my gallery, so we must be having a good day!

Oooh.... I think she'd probably side on the "don't bother for my benefit love", but like many of us, prefers go with the flow if the opportunity is there to do it. Mrs Freddy is the same. As long as I don't push too hard, as long as I try to be inclusive .... It works. If herself thinks she's getting second place [to heels or anything else] there's definitely a crimp put on my antics.

If the photo's of your missus gets her more involved, I would myself, persue that with some vigour. In fact there's a couple of threads on HHp that indicate just how inclusive it's possible to get ..... No link as the one I intended to add, now has what I suspect are their 'personal' photo's where the HH ones should be.

Anyway, the photo's of you both are great. Do please keep them coming. And if there's any sight of a bright day on Sunday, I might persuade herself to get in front of the camera wearing heels too. :-(

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[heelman500 25]

Thanks for the tips FF2, they are useful and i will bear them in mind on my next photograph session, I have got a new digital camera, its not the most expensive as it is ideal for point and shoot! but it is 16 megapixel, which is improving the quality and I have got the front room to use now which has plenty of space and a good overhead light source. My window sill is at the perfect height for shots to include the feet, how convienient.

I am going to see if her indoors would like to participate in having more pictures taken of her in different pairs of heels, she has got loads of shoes that she never wears so i might use that as an excuse to get pictures of them

I really want to start getting some outdoors and on location shots of me in heels, but she is quite anti me wandering around in my heels when I am with her so i think that she would probably not attend any gathering of us in heels!

I did see a really good video on you tube recently of two women trying on heels in new Look and i think that some pics of some of us trying befre buying might be a good idea, not sure if any one will be up for it though

[FastFreddy2 282]

[said in the voice of a Nu Dubz member.]

"Hey fella, you is well dapper."

Just gets better and better.

Do you see what I mean about lighting the shoes? In the past I've used black velvet [de-fluffed and de-linted] to provide a truly black backgound where there might otherwise have been endless clutter. Black texted material tends to suck up all the light, putting detail outside the normal range of the [digital] sensor or film. [i've used this as others do, to give depth to a 2 dimensional image.]

With the white wall background fooling the sensor, the suit and shoes are underexposed. Have a look at your camera User Destructions, and see if one of the program modes will allow you to increase the light level by 1 stop. Ideally you want your blacks to be verging on [or in] a very dark grey where a little detail is possible.

From the composition point of view, the style and target interest of your viewing audience, I'd say your pictures are as good as you're going to get inside your home studio. The contrast thing is me getting you to 'fine tune' the detail, nothing more.

Getting herself more at ease with you in heels while you're out .... Much harder.

One of the great leaps forward for me, was on getting the missus out on her birthday with me in heels.

She is and was nuts on Tutankhamun. I got her two tickets for the exhibition at the O2 three years ago as the main part of her birthday present. I'm interested in history, but not stuff that happened 3,000 years ago, so I was thinking she could 'phone a friend'. Trouble was, they were even less interested than me....

We struck a deal where I would go [get really bored] as long as I got to wear heels the whole time we were out. It was a good deal for us both. She had a great [full] day there, and I got to wear heels for a fairly long period. [8 or 9 hours if I remember.] It's written up in detail on HHp.

My point is, not only did I get agreement for the deal, there was some enthusiasm for it too. ["Put 'em on - let's go."]

Every time we go out with me in heels, I try to make sure we BOTH have a nice time out together. Some days are better than others, but we seldom [if ever] have failures. General itinery; travel somewhere ..... Have coffee and/or lunch on arrival ..... Shop ..... Eat .... Travel home. If we do stuff that's local, I might walk to and from the venue in heels. If we eat local I change my footwear. If we go to the movies, I usually don't bother. [Easy getting in unnoticed, much harder getting out when everyone leaves the auditorium at the same time.]

I never wear stiletto's on these shared gigs though. I wear block heels, or as you've seen, a high heeled cowboy boot with a 4" heel. I have worn blade heels in London, where I might also be tempted to wear stiletto's in the evening - if I know I'm not walking on slabbed pavement where heels can get damaged sinking between cracks or breaks in the slabbing. The idea is my feet aren't supposed to draw any attention. [And in her mind, unwanted attention.] So I don't wear heels so high they slow me down too much, or force me to walk like Dick Emery in his "You are awful" sketches.

Which reminds me. If you are going to wear that suit and heels, you may need longer trousers .... :-( Woman or man in heels, trousers at 'half mast' doesn't seem to work as well as trouser bottoms just touching the tops of toes. More expense?

Keep up the good work. I'm getting dead jealous seeing your piccies, and I'm feeling like I'm slacking not joining in. Need to make some time, eh?

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[shyguy 15]

It's great to see so many new pictures going up and interesting to see the variety of shoes you have. I think you put together a pretty good outfit too, but as Freddy pointed out the trousers need to be longer, but I'm going to guess you wore them that way to show the shoes better?

Keep the pics coming Heelman, and Freddy keep supplying those tips as I take a rubbish picture and all help is welcome in that area.

[heelman500 25]

Thanks for your comments, I did purposely wear those jeans as they would show off the shoes to the best advantage, all my other pairs of jeans are very long so that I can disguise my heel wearing, I have put some more pics on today with another pair of jeans, which I dug out from the back of the wardrobe which are a little shorter than the others.

I am after a new pair of heels from New look and will put photos up when I get them, which is likely to be after payday on Friday.

[FastFreddy2 282]

Keep the pics coming Heelman, and Freddy keep supplying those tips as I take a rubbish picture and all help is welcome in that area.

Perhaps we should start a whole new 'photo' forum?

I think we're all gonna have to work hard to catch up with Heelman. Because I'm living in a building site, both making time and clearing space is difficult. I prefer to use natural light if I can, and we don't get many sunny days at the moment. But it can't keep on raining, can it?

I remember watching something like Countryfile, [bBC TV programme centred on the farming and outdoor communities in the UK], and they predicted that 2011 was going to be a draught year? How wrong could they be?

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[shyguy 15]

Just saw the latest pics, very nice shots and in shop too.

Tried taking some pics myself at the weekend and looked terrible (Yes the pics and also myself looked terrible) so nothing to show in here.