Pascal Baetens. Nude Photography. The Art and The Craft. 2007

124 exploring techniques

stairs & doorways

Almost every building has them and they provide endless

scope for photographic exploration. stairs and doorways

are gateways between two places, and as such are rich

sources for creating intriguing visual stories. they suggest

a past and a future—a person on a stairway or passing

through a door is leaving something behind and moving on.

of course, they are very useful as purely compositional

devices too. A doorway can be used to frame your model,

or he or she might use the door as a prop, to hide behind,

or enter through. stairs by their very nature are wonderful

for creating compositions with strong diagonals and leading

lines, which automatically bring dynamism to an image.

Light and shadow

the spectacular contrast of light and shadow and the combination of elements

make this a very dramatic image. the dark, sinister stairs lead to a door that opens

onto a brightly lit window, with the model caught between the two environments.

Working on stairs

stairs can be tricky because you may have to manage differences in level

between you and your model, and space is often cramped. i might use a wide-

angle lens to overcome the problem, in which case i will shoot upward to avoid

the wide-angle distortion shortening the model’s legs. here are just a few

examples of the many different moods you can create using stairs as a location.