Cam's Camera: Slave Girls

[bobinder]

Kam-Aqhat's slavegirls : (1) Meri​

Kam-Aqhat is a minor official at the court of Pharaoh Neb-khepesh-Re, also known as Apophis or Apepi, in Avaris.
He owns four slavegirls. His most recent acquisition is Meri, captured in the eastern desert by Kam-Aqhat himself.

Look higher up for Sclava - Meri's account of her capture.

I wonder if Kam-Aqhat is a character with whom the artist identifies? He has acquired an attractive addition to his household, and I imagine that Meri led a lengthy pursuit prior to her capture, since she has the slender, athletic physique of a sprinter. Her Egyptian loincloth is well observed, and together with the legible hieroglyphs on her collar pendant, this helps to define the period and location. These items are separate additions, carefully fitted to the figure, and the collar casts a subtle shadow on the skin.

The foreground and the feet have been cropped out, so we cannot identify precisely where Meri is standing. She appears quite tall compared to the architectural features, although the background does have a high eye level, or theoretical horizon. This is slightly above the balcony handrail, which coincides with Meri's eye level, and so it appears convincing, assuming a considerable distance between the figure and the building.

Whilst it might be tempting to increase the subtle blurring of the distant masonry and the palm tree in order to focus attention on Meri, it would be unfortunate to lose such interesting details from her new surroundings. The long depth of field helps to confirm a consistent direction of sunlight in the background and on the inserted figure, so I think it is justifiable. This is another example of neat blending to produce an illusion in which the figure appears to be an authentic part of the scene. Nice work, Kam!

 

[CamCrux]

I wonder if Kam-Aqhat is a character with whom the artist identifies? He has acquired an attractive addition to his household, and I imagine that Meri led a lengthy pursuit prior to her capture, since she has the slender, athletic physique of a sprinter. Her Egyptian loincloth is well observed, and together with the legible hieroglyphs on her collar pendant, this helps to define the period and location. These items are separate additions, carefully fitted to the figure, and the collar casts a subtle shadow on the skin.

The foreground and the feet have been cropped out, so we cannot identify precisely where Meri is standing. She appears quite tall compared to the architectural features, although the background does have a high eye level, or theoretical horizon. This is slightly above the balcony handrail, which coincides with Meri's eye level, and so it appears convincing, assuming a considerable distance between the figure and the building.

Whilst it might be tempting to increase the subtle blurring of the distant masonry and the palm tree in order to focus attention on Meri, it would be unfortunate to lose such interesting details from her new surroundings. The long depth of field helps to confirm a consistent direction of sunlight in the background and on the inserted figure, so I think it is justifiable. This is another example of neat blending to produce an illusion in which the figure appears to be an authentic part of the scene. Nice work, Kam!

Thanks Bob. Your comments and reviews are always highly appreciated, as you know.

It's true that in this particular picture the relative sizes of subject and background may look a bit surprising.

It is also quite possible indeed that "the artist" is playfully projecting himself into those distant time and place, along with slave Sclava-Meri

 

[montycrusto]

@bobinder ’s detailed and observant comments always send me back to @CamCrux ‘s picture for another look!

 

[Loinclothslave]

@bobinder ’s detailed and observant comments always send me back to @CamCrux ‘s picture for another look!

This just happened to me for the first time, @bobinder has an amazing eye for detail!

 

[montycrusto]

This just happened to me for the first time, @bobinder has an amazing eye for detail!

Yes, thanks Bob (@bobinder ) for reminding us to slow down and really look. We’re so flooded with images every day, it’s easy to lose the habit of noticing things, and we miss so much. I had not noticed the hieroglyphs for example… probably distracted by the slave girl’s remarkably beautiful tits

 

[Marcia]

Here is my latest manipulation. The story is by Keigera of DA. She's telling about how she was brutally captured and enslaved to be sent as tribute to a distant ruler.

By the evening of the great festival, my friends and I went to the Great Ra-River, the Volga. After swimming and frolicking, we took wreaths of wild grasses and flowers, lowered them into the water and watched them float away, plunged into our dreams of future suitors.

They came suddenly. No, these were not our brave boys whom we dreamed of. They were warriors, in strange armor, who with frightening exclamations, holding weapons in their hands, surrounded us, a flock of defenseless girls who did not even have time to put their clothes back on. Their eerie language, faces and armor, along with their frightening weapons, scared us very much, plunging us into shock. When we recovered we wanted to run awy but it was already too late. The men, who were less numerous than us, acted cunningly and with great coordination, driving us into a group, not leaving us anywhere to escape. All we could do was snuggle up to each other and scream, hoping that someone in the village would hear us. After some time, they began to drive us along the river. What could we do? We were all terribly afraid and thought that if we did something wrong they would kill us. After running some distance along the river, we saw a ship over the hill, moored near the bank. With loud shouts they began to drive us onto it.

After some time, the men came running from the village, but it was already too late, the ship was sailing away, and we were already tied up sitting in a corner and crying, looking at each other, glancing in fear at the soldiers.

Then there was a long trip down the river. I have never cried for so long in my life. I reproached myself for leaving the village to the river, I cursed fate, prayed to the gods, and did not understand a word of the language of the invaders. I wanted to go home so much ! Finally, the ship moored near a small town, where they began to take us out. Walking through the streets, naked as we were, was even more humiliating than on that ill-fated ship. I was not born yesterday and therefore I guessed why we had been captured. We would become slaves and we were gnawed by terrible doubts about the people living here. Having heard about the dreadful Northerners making human sacrifices, I tried to drive away any thought of that.

Finally we were led to a small smithy and a man in rich clothing who looked like a prince came out to us. Walking past us and looking carefully, he pointed at one of the girls, who was immediately taken to the smithy and chained to a rafter. I was trembling and could not hold back my tears. Then the man stopped next to me, sharply turned me around, patted me on the butt. He smiled. He began to examine me. He made me bend down, pushed my ass apart, then made me face him, touched my breasts, squeezed them, ran his hand down my body, causing me a whole cascade of not very pleasant sensations. He squeezed my crotch, drawing a piercing squeak from me. I could hardly contain myself. It was so offensive, painful and humiliating. He examined me for a while, finally pushed me aside, ordering me to follow the first slave into the forge. After looking at one of my friends, I slowly walked away. Shily, I stood behind the chained one. Tears ran down my cheeks. After some time, another one came to stand behind me. Then they pinned me down and the blacksmith brought a red-hot poker to me. Never in my life have I felt such pain. The smell of burnt flesh was horrible. Almost fainting, balancing on the brink, I opened my eyes and saw the brand on my left shoulder. When they took me to the side, a cold metal collar was already hanging from my neck. When we were taken away, the blacksmith said something, laughing, and slapped my butt.

Long days of longing and despair dragged on. No, we weren't bullied anymore. We were kept in some house and well fed and looked after. We did not understand the local speech at all. However, there was one guy who, in broken language, was still able to explain something clearly enough. And only then did I realize that we were lucky somehow that very soon we with other rich gifts, a tribute, would be sent to a powerful ruler in some Yuan Empire. Never before had I ever heard of such a country. Probably it did not exist, he was trying to calm us down somehow, but it only made it worse.
After a few days, they really began to prepare us and dress us up for the long journey. And again we were taken to the ship. And then they began to drag chests and bags with strange carpets onto it. It was only then that I realised that we were no different from all these beautiful things, that we were all just a tribute to an unknown ruler.

View attachment 910263

Very exciting story about the begin of the enslavement of some women.

 

[Jollyrei]

Kam-Aqhat's slavegirls : (1) Meri​

Kam-Aqhat is a minor official at the court of Pharaoh Neb-khepesh-Re, also known as Apophis or Apepi, in Avaris.
He owns four slavegirls. His most recent acquisition is Meri, captured in the eastern desert by Kam-Aqhat himself.

Look higher up for Sclava - Meri's account of her capture.

View attachment 1066263

A lovely addition to the household. It looks like she's new and perhaps not sure what her life with Kam-Aghat will be like. She's up before the rest of the household, out in the courtyard trying to find her centre and make sense of it all. She looks a little uneasy, but she's intelligent and knows that she needs to be ready when the family wakes and the day truly begins. In the meantime, she has this small luxury of a moment to herself. Beautiful image, Cam.

 

[CamCrux]

Very exciting story about the begin of the enslavement of some women.

The story is by Sclava. I made the accompanying picture.

 

[CamCrux]

Kam-Aqhat's slavegirls : (2) Asher​

Kam-Aqhat is a minor official at the court of Pharaoh Neb-khepesh-Re, also known as Apophis or Apepi, in Avaris.
He owns four slavegirls. This is Asher, a Nubian bought at the market in Avaris.

 

[bobinder]

Kam-Aqhat is a minor official at the court of Pharaoh Neb-khepesh-Re, also known as Apophis or Apepi, in Avaris.
He owns four slavegirls. This is Asher, a Nubian bought at the market in Avaris.

Asher appears to be a highly valued addition to the household, adorned as she is with bright metal, serpent armbands and 'loincloth'. That is probably an incorrect name for a brief garment which seems to contain no cloth whatsoever. She also has the regular, hieroglyphed pendant on her collar, and she wears a navel jewel. The latter may originate with the source image of the model, but the other details have been added individually.

The background shows a large, ancient Egyptian, domestic interior, illuminated by sunlight coming through the doorway, and a flame on the right. This may be a digital creation, in which case the disturbance in the carpet is realistically observed. The backlighting presents a challenge for inserting new components, but the contrast and colour saturation values have been carefully balanced for the figure and the furnishings.

The girl looks downwards - perhaps she is bowing deferentially, or maybe she is simply unaware of the viewer's presence? I think she is busily engaged in smoothing out the carpet with her feet, and she has not noticed us. Whatever the reason for her pose, this is an attractive scene with all elements neatly blended. Nice work again, Kam!

 

[CamCrux]

Dancing for her master
A rather simple manipulation involving model Lily and a painting by 'orientalist' Ludwig Deutsch, The Smoker (1903).
Instead of staring into the void, the smoker is now admiring the girl's grace and beauty.

 

[bobinder]

Dancing for her master
A rather simple manipulation involving model Lily and a painting by 'orientalist' Ludwig Deutsch, The Smoker (1903).
Instead of staring into the void, the smoker is now admiring the girl's grace and beauty.

Beautiful work, Kam! You have become one of the leading Lily photo manip artists - now with six pictures of Lily in your portfolio. It is interesting to note that with relatively few artists using her pictures, despite the abundance of source material, you and @Astrospartus have employed the same pose. The original photograph is an outdoor nude study by @E-DigitalFantasy , taken in the garden during Lily's first session with him on 13 October 2014.

The manipulation concept is completely different in each case. In 'Elfe 03', Astrospartus has manipulated the entire image by adding elf ears and plant tendrils, whereas you have neatly extracted the figure as a component for a completely different scene. Ludwig Deutsch's painting has been transformed by the addition of the new figure. No longer is it the original static, seated portrait, but it has become a much more dynamic interaction, documenting the relationship between a dancing slave girl and her master.

​

The painting is beautifully detailed, with a faithful reproduction of the broken tiles on the wall. Deutsch was fascinated by Orientalist themes even before he made the first of several visits to Egypt during the 1880s. He photographed many of the scenes which would later appear in his paintings, and this particular interior appears in at least two paintings. It forms the background of 'The Chess Players' which features the same model as 'The Smoker'. These paintings were completed in Deutsch's studio in Paris.

You have taken considerable care in preserving the lower strands of Lily's hair, and the anklet has been added neatly above her left foot. Beyond this, no adjustments have been made to the figure, and in fact the eye level, colour and saturation values all work reasonably well, having transferred successfully from the outdoor lighting of the photograph to the interior scene of the painting. The result is an attractive composition, presenting Lily in one of her familiar attitudes. Well done, Kam!

 

[E-DigitalFantasy]

Beautiful work, Kam! You have become one of the leading Lily photo manip artists - now with six pictures of Lily in your portfolio. It is interesting to note that with relatively few artists using her pictures, despite the abundance of source material, you and @Astrospartus have employed the same pose. The original photograph is an outdoor nude study by @E-DigitalFantasy , taken in the garden during Lily's first session with him on 13 October 2014.

The manipulation concept is completely different in each case. In 'Elfe 03', Astrospartus has manipulated the entire image by adding elf ears and plant tendrils, whereas you have neatly extracted the figure as a component for a completely different scene. Ludwig Deutsch's painting has been transformed by the addition of the new figure. No longer is it the original static, seated portrait, but it has become a much more dynamic interaction, documenting the relationship between a dancing slave girl and her master.

View attachment 1072571​

The painting is beautifully detailed, with a faithful reproduction of the broken tiles on the wall. Deutsch was fascinated by Orientalist themes even before he made the first of several visits to Egypt during the 1880s. He photographed many of the scenes which would later appear in his paintings, and this particular interior appears in at least two paintings. It forms the background of 'The Chess Players' which features the same model as 'The Smoker'. These paintings were completed in Deutsch's studio in Paris.

You have taken considerable care in preserving the lower strands of Lily's hair, and the anklet has been added neatly above her left foot. Beyond this, no adjustments have been made to the figure, and in fact the eye level, colour and saturation values all work reasonably well, having transferred successfully from the outdoor lighting of the photograph to the interior scene of the painting. The result is an attractive composition, presenting Lily in one of her familiar attitudes. Well done, Kam!

Thanks Bob for your mention. And thanks Kam for another wonderful manip using one of my pictures of the lovely Lily! This is another of your wonderful manips of one of my pics of Lily where she is a shackled slave girl working in the mines.

 

[E-DigitalFantasy]

Dancing for her master
A rather simple manipulation involving model Lily and a painting by 'orientalist' Ludwig Deutsch, The Smoker (1903).
Instead of staring into the void, the smoker is now admiring the girl's grace and beauty.

View attachment 1072481

Wonderful manip Kam!

 

[CamCrux]

(...) the eye level, colour and saturation values all work reasonably well (...)

Actually I find the light on Lily's torso has too much green-yellow in it, but I'm not quite sure how to correct that without altering the general colour of the figure, or making a mess of it ...

 

[CamCrux]

Thanks Bob for your mention. And thanks Kam for another wonderful manip using one of my pictures of the lovely Lily! This is another of your wonderful manips of one of my pics of Lily where she is a shackled slave girl working in the mines.

View attachment 1072610 View attachment 1072611

Sorry E-DF, I forgot to give you credit for the picture of dancing Lily. My apologies, and thanks for making your work available

 

[Jollyrei]

Dancing for her master
A rather simple manipulation involving model Lily and a painting by 'orientalist' Ludwig Deutsch, The Smoker (1903).
Instead of staring into the void, the smoker is now admiring the girl's grace and beauty.

View attachment 1072481

Complex is not always the answer, I find. Beautiful image, Kam. The original painting was somewhat bucolic. Your manip adds a certain vibrancy and excitement to the scene. Lily fits right into the scene here.

 

[bobinder]

Actually I find the light on Lily's torso has too much green-yellow in it, but I'm not quite sure how to correct that without altering the general colour of the figure, or making a mess of it ...

Even though Lily was photographed in the shade, her skin tone is influenced by the outdoor lighting and the subtle reflections from the colours of the garden plants. Now that she has been removed to a new environment, she needs to blend into a scene which is indoors and painted, rather than photographed.

The painting has high contrast and very high colour saturation - much higher than @E-DigitalFantasy 's original photograph (which is by any standards a beautiful image in its own right). In order to blend these two different images together convincingly, both need to be adjusted, until the quality of each approaches the other.

I have increased the contrast and colour saturation of Lily's skin tone, and I have decreased the colour saturation of the background, to bring the two images closer together in visual terms. The texture of the painting is influenced by the weave of the canvas, which is visible. To produce a sympathetic effect on Lily, I have added noise, but only at 3%.

All of my adjustments have been made by creating filters, which are additional transparent layers, set between 10% - 75% opacity. This provides great flexibility in balancing the figure with the background, and fine-tuning the picture. The modified version shown here has two component layers (background and figure) plus six filter layers for the various texture, contrast and colour adjustments.

I hope you will have no objection to my modification of your picture - in all respects, it remains your own concept and composition, which are highly successful.

​

 

[CamCrux]

Even though Lily was photographed in the shade, her skin tone is influenced by the outdoor lighting and the subtle reflections from the colours of the garden plants. Now that she has been removed to a new environment, she needs to blend into a scene which is indoors and painted, rather than photographed.

The painting has high contrast and very high colour saturation - much higher than @E-DigitalFantasy 's original photograph (which is by any standards a beautiful image in its own right). In order to blend these two different images together convincingly, both need to be adjusted, until the quality of each approaches the other.

I have increased the contrast and colour saturation of Lily's skin tone, and I have decreased the colour saturation of the background, to bring the two images closer together in visual terms. The texture of the painting is influenced by the weave of the canvas, which is visible. To produce a sympathetic effect on Lily, I have added noise, but only at 3%.

All of my adjustments have been made by creating filters, which are additional transparent layers, set between 10% - 75% opacity. This provides great flexibility in balancing the figure with the background, and fine-tuning the picture. The modified version shown here has two component layers (background and figure) plus six filter layers for the various texture, contrast and colour adjustments.

I hope you will have no objection to my modification of your picture - in all respects, it remains your own concept and composition, which are highly successful.

View attachment 1072946​

Excellent ! You are truly a master, Bob !
I usually use a degree of noise on figures added to a painting but for some reason didn't do it here. The effect is quite successful.
And I didn't think of using saturation either, + or -. Again it works very well. Thanks.

 

[bobinder]

Excellent ! You are truly a master, Bob !
I usually use a degree of noise on figures added to a painting but for some reason didn't do it here. The effect is quite successful.
And I didn't think of using saturation either, + or -. Again it works very well. Thanks.

Thanks for your appreciation, Kam - I'm glad that you approve of the modifications. Please use my version however you wish - it is your picture, after all.