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    X3Guide Review

    I thought it was pretty fair - although I think it does not give enough credit to the Gold section. Perhaps Susie & Nikki weren't there when they looked.

    Abby: what do you think of the comment:
    "In most of abby's photoshoots the posing/acting is mildly expressed rather boring, there is no WOW! Effect. Which is a shame for some of her models are real goody goodies! (abby, check out Steven Hicks phototips. His advise on how to work with a model is excellent)"
    Do you know Steven Hicks?

    Happy New Year, everyone!

    #2
    Hiya

    As Susie and Nikki were the first additions to the Gold section, they must have been there when they looked. I was a little disappointed that they did not rave about what WAS there, rather than what is not, but I guess there's not much I can do about it. The rest of the review is pretty flattering, so I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. img tag disable, use attachment mgr/system to add images to postshttp://www.abbywinters.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

    I have no idea where that comment about boring poses comes from. No one has ever said that before (does anyone else think that? speak up! I am open to constructive critticism!).

    Stephen Hicks has been shooting for Penthouse et al since the early 80's. He runs a few pron sites featuring his work (all Penthouse style). I presume the review means that my models are not acting "sexy", the definition of which he gets from Penthouse.

    And we all know, the oiled bodies, fake boobs, high heels, suspenders, stockings, grimaces, pearls and big hair is sexy as hell, right?

    *sigh*

    a

    Comment


      #3
      Don't listen that nonsense, Abby.

      The only WOW is in the "WOW! This naked model looks just like that one...
      and that one, WOW, they all look alike! How do they do that?"

      Keep it natural and real. There is fascinating variety in real, natural
      female bodies, even when the scope is limited to 'good-looking' women only.

      Boring poses? The entire concept of 'posing' implies artificiality.
      I suspect most people (especially fans of abbywinters.com) prefer less
      NOT more artificiality.

      Let Steven Hicks be the poseur. You do a better job of exposing true feminine beauty.

      Comment


        #4
        OK, I'll be controversial. In some shoots, I do get the feeling that the model is "just going through the motions" of stripping without much sense of fun or sexiness. An example would be Imogen. She's a pleasant person I'm sure, but I did not sense much of her personality from the pics.

        In many sets there are also a lot of very similar pics. For example, it takes Raven from #45 to #64 to get her jeans off, while lying in the same position on the sofa. Similarly, I remember it takes Katrina many, many pics to get her red panties off.

        Contrast her with, say Emma. She seems to be engaging the viewer all the time, which I find very sexy. She's none of the things that Abby (and I) dislike so much, but I think the pics are a lot more successful.

        The X3Guide comment is not a fair comparison when the kind of models Mr. Hicks must shoot - all professionals surely?

        But, it may be possible for Abby to engage with the model more, especially the quiet ones, to get them to show their personalities. I have never have the privilege of attending a shoot, so have little idea of how it works.

        Comment


          #5
          The key obstacle with most shoots is time. Usually a serious lack of it. That can really make a difference with the resulting shoot - sometimes a positive thing, but often it's not.

          Also, there's the shyness factor. Some models will never be anything but a nervous wreck, and it shows.

          The worst are the models who have done it all before and are just getting naked for the money. Luckily they are few, but there's a serious lack of life in their eyes or posture, which is disappointing. You'll know those kinds of models when you see them. It's like they don't care that they're sitting there legs akimbo, and sort of laughing at us too. (I don't know if that's true, it's just an impression I've gotten a couple of times).

          Character plays a huge part in the appeal of a model and the success of a shoot - even if they're faking it, at least it's better than lifelessness. With Abby getting a proper studio set up, and with more time spent on the shoots themselves, I am expecting more of a shift towards shoots that will be set up to suit the personality of the individual model, and therefore put a bit more life into what could otherwise be not so successful.

          Comment


            #6
            yah, as VD says, some models are old hands at it, and it shows. Imogen is a prime example. Sure, she has a great bod, and does good stuff (spreads, insertions), but she's looks kinda vagued out (maybe stoned, in hindsight, tho at the time I thought that was her personality!), and not like she's enjoying it, especially.

            Anyway, I don't think that;s what the reviewer at x3guide.com was referring to (tho I don;t know that. and he's no longer about, to ask). But looking at Stephen Hick's work (think Penthouse), I interptered that comment to mean, "make the models look _sexier_ - high heels, etc". Maybe? I dunno.

            a

            Comment


              #7
              Your site is favorably reviewed overall and top rated by users. It is listed first in the user ratings today at X3Guide Review.
              I think the criticism is bothersome in some respects but helps a reviewer justify his existence.

              True all poses on this site are not perfect (in their eyes... I like them all). However, it's a joy to see natural looking girls posing to the best of their ability and captured in excellent resolution, with nice photographic technique. This all comes at an excellent price making Abbywinters.com a gem of a web site and a super value, in my book.

              I think one difference that I would imagine exists between Stephen Hicks and Abby is that he will pick a few of photos of the model to display. I'll bet he takes many times more photos than Abby and then selects the "perfect" ones. That would make it easier to create "perfect" photos but then you don't get as good a glimpse of the personality of the model. I'm not saying I don't enjoy a creative photo with perfect lighting and posing. I have seen some photos by J. Stephen Hicks that are stunningly beautiful. However, Abby captures something different and very real, though, included in her photo sets are some truly outstanding pictures in my opinion.

              I have a membership at Abby's site. Maybe Stephen Hicks should take a few notes! img tag disable, use attachment mgr/system to add images to postshttp://www.abbywinters.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

              Comment


                #8
                Hi Abby,
                with regard to your mention of the review of webside at x3guide.com in the member's index section of today I visited that side and read the review. All in all I guess it's okay with the exception of the reviewer telling that your models are not sexy enough (only a '6' out of '10').
                In my opinion the comparison of your work to that of J. S. Hicks is the most silliest one I could think of. Well let's say that I know Mr. Hicks' work a little bit from amkingdom.com. And I must say that among all pictures placed there Mr. Hicks's ones are those that attract me the least: mostly plastic boobs, an artificial look of the girl, all pubic hair shaved in the same way the U.S. porn industry favors and so on, and so on …

                I would like to encourage you to go on with your work. As I love all those young Australian girls "from next door", mostly not perfect in the shape of their bodies. But what means "being perfect" in our world ? It's just fake if one knows that even the pics of these so called "Super Models" of the fashion biz are not released before they are digitally reshaped. To be honest it's just the "being not to perfect" of your models that attracts me, i.e. some scars or scratches on the skin (for example Cat has got this little wound on top of her left knee, see Cat126). Even a pair of uneven breasts or some not accurately trimmed toenails are much more close to life than those clean, 'perfect' models other websides (and photographers) prefer.

                It' always striking to me to discover the personality of any of the girls within the progress of the series of pics. Even without your comments in the members/index-section or on the homepage of each individual girl one could surely notify that Amy (taken as an example) was a little bit shy in the beginning of the foto shooting but got quite relaxed as the shooting continued. (I remember her great spreads !). On the other side in my opinion it is clear to see that girls like Mikaela or Charlie, to name but a few, are quite more outrageous in their personal behaviour - both in front of the camera (which can be seen) and in their private life (which I have to guess).

                Let me end this message with telling you that I did also vote for your webside at x3guide.com - surely a '10' as you are presenting the kind of pictures I was always looking for. If other people have different interests, you cant't help it. Leave them alone !!!

                There's two more questions of a more technical nature that I would like to ask you as the photographer:
                1) It seems to me that with the change to your new camera you've also changed the size of the pics (from 1280x960 to 1440x960). Is this due to the limitations of the camera ? I mean the former size (i.e. a relation of 4 to 3 regarding height and width) fitted well with the size of my computer screen. But the new size (i.e. a relation of 3:2) doesn't. That means that I'll have always to cut off a piece of the original pic to make it fit to the size of my screen. What was the reason for your decision to change the format of the pics ?

                2) I've noted before that most (but not all) of your pics have a touch of red over all which I tried to extuinguish while reworking those pictures in my computer. On the other hand while examining the new pics today of Gemma I've found that the complete first set (i.e. the one with her undressing in the bathroom) seems to be covered by green cover over all. I used the "Automatic correction" function of my programme Adope Photo DeLuxe (which seems to be a light version of Adobe Photoshop) and found out that the pictures look a lot more natural after I've done this.
                Does this mean that you're using different filters while taking the pictures ? And if so why ? Is it just a matter of decision (personal preferencies) or is it because you - as a self-taught photographer - are still experimenting with the right expression ?

                Greeting from freezing cold Germany (it's wintertime over here)
                yours
                Christoph

                Comment


                  #9
                  Hi Christoph

                  First, thanks for your kind words! Be great if you could send that to x3guide.com!

                  To answer your specific questions, the new camera takes images in a naturally different res to the old camera. Adjusting all the older images to make them larger would dramatically affect their quality (even with the best interpolation filters), their file size, and would mean they would all have to be re-uploaded to the server, all the zips remade, and so on. And of course the time to actually upsize them. Lotsa of work.

                  Adjusting all the new images (and I gotta think, I expect to have this camera for three years at least, so that's a LOT of potential images) to match the smaller size is again, a big job. If it was a simple crop (only the Y dimension is larger, so if I did a proportionate resize, the images would be smaller than the old camera in the Y dimension, even tho X now matches), some information would be lost (tho I am still getting used to the new aspect ratio - you might have noticed a lot of the portrait shots have too much headroom?).

                  An additional problem would be that the crop would have to be smart - cutting the same off top and bottom, or cutting just the top, or just the bottom, is a decision a real person has to make, not a batch process I could do.

                  So, the additional editing time would be crippling. With all those reasons in mind, I decided to leave the old images as they are, and the new images as they are. Your post is the closest to a complaint that I have had (tho several people have mentioned they noticed the diff), and you're not really complaining either (are you? img tag disable, use attachment mgr/system to add images to postshttp://www.abbywinters.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

                  With regards to color balance... this is a tricky issue, and something that a lot of people take WAY too seriously, IMO. Fact is, in real life, if you go into a bathroom with green tiles, and a florescent light (which have a notoriously green "white"), it's going to look damn green. Humans are pretty good at adjusting to this kinda thing, but if you look at things objectively, you'll see what "white" light is actually many different colours, depending on where you are.

                  Look at sunlight at different times of day, for example. Very blue in the morning, whiter (tho still blue) at midday, and downright ORANGE at sunset. But you don't go around thinking, "gee, everything's orange!" (unless it's a particularly amazing sunset). Street lights at night? In most cities, these are Sodium Vapour, and bright orange. Same deal, you adjust to them.

                  Now, I am not using that as an excuse, but it's something to keep in mind.

                  As you may have noticed, I don't adjust the colour balance of any of the images on the website. I very occasionally adjust the brightness and contrast of an image (such as Tanaya's set), and as you know, I never touch up blemishes. There are a few reasons for this:

                  o it does not bother me that much
                  o the huge majority of customers do not mind
                  o to fix the colour balance in each image is a big pain

                  In Gemma's case, that was my second ever shoot with the D30 camera, and I agree, it is particularly bad. Another bad one is Amber (her pics are very yellow). Like Gemma, that was user error.

                  You'll notice that the models I shot in Perth (Drew and Amy, and most of the coming up models), the white balance is much better. These are not touched up in PS, just captured in the camera with more skill (the cam has several white balance settings, and some of them are mysterious, but I am learning them).

                  Soooooo: thanks for your feedback. I am getting better with the WB. I doubt I will start changing the colour balance for images on aw.com - I'd rather capture them right in the first place.

                  a

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Hi guys

                    Thanks for your kind words. It'd be great if you could check out their review again, cos now thay have a place where you can include comments! I am going to sumbit some stuff as well.

                    Thanks again. If you use any other review sites that we are not on already (hell, even if we are - I did not know about x3guide until a member here told me about it!), please let me know.

                    abby

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Hi Abby,
                      thanks for your lengthy answer to my questions placed yesterday. I hope you did understand that I was far from complaining. I was just curios about some details of your photographic work. And by the way - making those pics adjusting to the size of my computer screen, changing the color, the brightness, the sharpness etc. is a special fun for me that I don't want to miss.
                      So long (and for sure I'm gonna send my comments regarding the mentioned review to x3guide.com later this evening)
                      Christoph

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Congrats on the recent impressive climb up the x3guide top voted chart. img tag disable, use attachment mgr/system to add images to postshttp://www.abbywinters.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

                        Comment


                          #13
                          thanks! And thanks to everyone who voted. 1byday.com is a good site, but mine is clearly better! ;)

                          Vote more!

                          a

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Hey Abby, everyone, this is Socks Manly here.. ;) I haven't checked out X3's review, but I noticed this discussion and thought I should post.. I am also a site reviewer for those who don't know, but I'll leave it up to Abby to tell you where I am from (I don't want to be promoting here!) Anyways! I have reviewed 1By-Day's website and it is truly a good site, but I don't understand the comparison.. I don't see these sites as being the same at all, in fact I see them as completely seperate. As to being boring, I don't see that at all either. After looking at many of the photos here I can see a lot of expression in the girl's faces, I almost feel like I could know them through the pictures. It's more personal, more intimate, and more playful.

                            Not to put down Stephen Hicks, his website is amazing, but I just don't see the resemblance.

                            My two cents..

                            Socks

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I've just noticed another very favourable review of your site on adultreviews.net. Congrats gang!

                              Comment

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