Tag: nudes

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Pictorial: “Women Only”
For Playboy Magazine, South Africa 2012

Playboy did a feature pictorial on my privately commissioned work in 2012. It was a 6 page spread. Ive added the original images in below as well.

The DPS shows images from the last 10 or so years, mostly private commissioned jobs by women.

Below the text in the article:

Women Only

Capetonian born and bred photographer, Leah Hawker, has specialized in one of our favorite subjects: Women.

She’s already shot our very own Jade Fairbrother as Miss September and we liked her work so much that we awarded her the prestigeous Playmate of the Year pictorial. When Leah isn’t shooting commercial assignments she’s most likely working on one of her privately commissioned nudes. Women in their 20’s to 40’s are undressing in front of her camera for steamy yet tasteful pictures, some of which we’ve featured here for your viewing pleasure…

Leah started photographing the (mostly naked) female form while completing her graduate thesis on erotic female stereotypes. Since then she’s gone on to develop an even broader portfolio and talent in this genre. Leah combines a strong conceptual art base with both her understanding of women and society’s effects on female identities, she blends her unique and bold style to create magic in her images.

“Maybe being a female photographer here is an advantage, but,  having a strong vision and knowing how to make your model feel confident and sexy is what really matters”, she says. “The bizarre and funny situations that come with this job are priceless, like shooting a tied-up and blindfolded model in the dungeon of the Castle (of Good Hope) while trying to avoid the Korean tourist groups or having your model pour copious amounts of honey all over herself. For most, its not everyday you whip your kit off for saucy images.”

Leah’s abilities with nudes has us holding our breath. Find more of her work or contact her for commissions at www.leahhawker.co.za

Above is a self portrait I shot in studio especially for this article.

Categories
Books | Mags | Articles | Ads | Film Women I've Shot

Playmate Pictorial: “Miss July”
for Playboy Magazine, South Africa

I photographed Leonie Valentine for Playboy South Africa’s May 2013 edition.

The shoot came together in studio where it had been moved a bit last minute. The theme was ‘lingerie catalogue-ish”. It wasn’t one of my favourite shoots for the magazine but Leonie is so beautiful it made it hard to go to wrong.

Ive included a bunch of behind the scenes shots because I’m a fan of seeing the background to a shoot.

You can see from the shot above that I used some vintage film lighting gear for some of the shoot. It yields a beautiful warm light with great shadows.

The small and fun team on the shoot was Mickey who assisted me, Sebastine Pepler who did hair and make up and our model Leonie.

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Women I've Shot

“The Housewives”, Private Commissions:
This is Marianna Pinter

(Note: “The Housewives” was a term I fondly coined in 2006 after I started getting shoot requests from private, individual women who became my clients. Many of the women who contacted me were married and in their mid 30’s and were doing the shoots as gifts to their husbands. The folder in my archives is still called this and so I’ve stuck to it, in part just for the irony: most of these women are not “housewives” at all, but strong independent and forward thinking women who I have had the honour of documenting.

All are private commissions and the demographic has changed substantially over the years. Some I’m still in contact with, others I’ve totally lost contact with, some have become friends, some may wish not to have their real names used, others don’t mind, some may have their faces obscured for privacy reasons, others have generously shared their experiences of being photographed.)

I met and photographed Hungarian Playboy playmate and winner of Playboy Playmate of the Year title Marianna in 2016. Her shoot was commissioned by a private male client.

The shoot brief was to make a large series of images over a one day shoot which were reminiscent of Cape Town and a reminder for Marianna of her trip to Africa. We shot at 3 locations with 4 looks over the one day.

After hair and makeup which was done at The Radisson hotel next to the V&A Waterfront we moved to the iconic Dolos (large faceted and rather beautifully designed concrete wave breakers) which were conveniently infant of the hotel. We did a lingerie shoot there and then moved to Camps Bay beach for the second look.

We shot for a few hours at midday with a reflector on Camps Bay beach with a change of about 5 swimsuits mostly from my prop collection but some from H&M (tops only) and two by an American design company Swimtart (sadly no longer around otherwise I would have added the link).

Marianna was lovely to work with, very sweet, reserved and easygoing. We had a break for lunch and all met again at Milnerton/Sunset beach for the last location of the afternoon at sunset.

We shot two looks at Milnerton beach: one more lifestyle and one swimsuit. Ive added a selection from this sequences of pics below. Everything was shot natural light with one large silver reflector.

Below are two of Marianna’s Playboy covers I found online and thought would give a nice perspective here.

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Projects Women I've Shot

A Body of work: 14 Minutes in Addis Ababa

14 Minutes in Addis Ababa was shot at dawn on an overnight layover in Ethiopia while flying from Mombasa to Cape Town. 
The 3 star hotel (with a piece of photocopied paper and tape masking a once-held fourth star in the vague hope that it could one day be recovered) was strangely lush and neglected in equal measures. 

Having missed the connecting bus to the airport, my travel companions and I found ourselves with 20 minutes to spare. Between capturing the first and the final image, only 14 minutes elapsed. In these moments, we entered the limbo space of the in-between: the distance between arrivals and departures, wakefulness and dreaming.

The shoot was somewhat unplanned, hasty and fortuitous. A chance occurrence that unfolded in a crease of a bygone era.