Doubled up in the studio

 

First studio shoot since August 2020.

We spoke a few weeks ago about getting together for a photoshoot. It was good to explore a few themes. Saskia had outfits prepared and poses in mind, as always we quickly found out rhythm.

This session had a twist; James, a friend of Saskia's came along.

He wanted to experience a shoot, and brought some great ideas. The main one was monochrome, simple poses and contrast.

Saskia was interested in bright and colourful, although I couldn't resist one with the colour removed.

I haven't photographed many male models, no particular reason except there a less of them. And I must admit I find it harder to pose them. The standard images are very macho inspired, I try to portray inner strength and confidence in my pictures. 

James definitely brought this mindset. Saskia knows what she wants to achieve. For me translating their ideas into pictures; adjusting lighting, making suggestions about angles and poses is something I very much enjoy.

A description delivered.

Moving lights and position made a big difference to how dark the background appeared. In reality it was much more vibrant when lit more directly.

Another simple shot; showing vulnerability, and confidence.

 

Once we had the wind machine setup and some wild hair under control we kept firing away to capture movement.

We start off a set with an idea and move around, the smallest change can have a big impact.

I am incredibly pleased with how it worked out. As I write this I haven't completed editing, so await feedback. I hope they like the results as much as I do. 

Where have all the people gone?

 

My photography is going in a new direction.

I feel I am moving away from portraits and people photography in general. This year I did a family commission, a studio shoot in March, and one in August.  

A project with Janice and Saskia is moving along, and a plan for a shoot with Eddy motorcycle consultants is in its early stages.

I have focused instead on the photography for my posts. I think of an idea; type away at it during the week and the challenge is to produce an interesting picture to head the page. And maybe some from the rides I have done, this is getting more difficult. A limited number of locations and routes is testing my creativity. A positive spin would be that it's also pushing me to ride to new places, and think differently.

I might investigate the genre of architectural street: gritty black and white, light and dark, shapes.

I find it hard to translate the vision I have to the camera. It will come with practice.

A colleague at work - Xavier - is also an avid photographer; we are now challenging each other to become more creative. I set the first subject, the title of this post. His reply was colour contrast. I haven't found the target for my camera yet.

Would my readers like to suggest a topic?

Good to be back

I hope this will be one of the last posts to include reference to lockdown. I went back to work, albeit from home, and photo studios could open for shoots.

Here was that shoot. Four month later I returned to the same place; this time with Saskia and Janice. I have worked with them many times, always producing great results. The last time was way back in 2019.

The session was to catch up and work on some ideas. I wanted to produce a black and white set, Saskia and Janice had some outfit combo's to test.

Then with some attitude.

Chilled.

And now for some colour. This set was at the beginning of the session; Saskia nailing it from the start.

Then a bold print.

And finally a casual set.

It's brilliant what you can achieve in a short time with a good team.

Big day in the studio

I haven't been in a studio since August. That was a themed event, shared with another photographer. Before then, in June I was in an unusual home studio. Both very much using the location to steer the ideas.

At the beginning of 2019 I put together team for a fashion shoot. I model I had produced great work with previously, a place I had used before and a MUA. Eventually the results were published.

It was a whole day shooting against a coloured background. I would normally shy away from this because I didn't think I could keep suggesting poses and ideas. Hence the search for interesting locations.

I learnt from it, coupled with youtube videos I have since watched, that the model contributes to the process far more than I thought. Ideas might start with the photographer, but they need to be translated, or interpreted. To that end I have been fortunate to work with very good models who did that very well.
They have been able, I now realise, to instinctively translate my ideas. More than that, give life to them.

It may look easy standing in front of the camera, but one of the many lesson I have learnt is that if you want the pictures to have energy, passion and expression; work with a good model. I may not be describing this very well, and doing the models a disservice. If you look at a photograph and are drawn in to it, that's a result of good teamwork.

I have stopped watching the how-to videos, the {insert a number} things to avoid/do, or how-to tutorials. They are all pretty much the same. Basic light with very little variation, or overly complicated, impractical setups. It just got boring. I found myself only thinking the way they did, and it started to put me off photography.

This project was intended to put that spark back. I still watch videos, but now they are of working photographers, with interesting ideas. The work they produce looks different, not extreme themes or lighting; subtle, quality productions. Their clients don't want pictures that look like the ones their competitors use.

And that's what I wanted to do this time; it was a studio I had used before, that time I certainly used the varied sets. The pictures were great, exactly what I had wanted.

Alex and I had a brilliant shoot in July last year.

We packed a lot into this session, plenty of wardrobe changes, and lighting setups. Some of the arrangements worked, some didn't. We either made small changes to solve the problems, or abandoned them.

I had initially planned to process only to black and white, but the colours that tumbled out of the suitcase couldn't be ignored.

Some black and white.

This is going to be a long post. I took so many pictures; using numerous lighting setups, many wardrobe changes and Alex nailed it all. It took me a long time to narrow them down to a reasonable number. And then to reduce the total again to share with you lovely readers.

The dress and coat combo caused a raised eyebrow from Alex when I suggested it and my wife was also surprised when I told her it was my choise. Both agreed it worked.

More black and white

And one last colour image to finish

Please add your address to my mailing list, or click the follow button to be kept informed about future posts.

Follow me on twitter. 

Leave a comment about this post. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this or any blog post.

For more of my work, go to my Facebook page.

and  
website

Stepford wives

A first for me; a themed studio day. With three models and a lot of work building the sets. It was a four hour shoot with one other photographer. A well planned schedule meant we shot separately; one model, then two and finally all three. We came away with different pictures, not normally the case with workshops and studio days. They usually encourage a queueing ritual, where everyone waits for the flash trigger. Hoping the current holder doesn't take too long and the models adopt the same series of poses. It's not their fault, there isn't time to chat and bounce ideas around. Even worse is when the person leading the session tells everyone what settings to use and places the lights in their never to be changed positions.

Not the case this time; there was advise from very the experienced models. But I had time to experiment.

The first time I had been to this studio was way back in 2017.

Beforehand I had some ideas for shots, bold colour, and a more posed look. We talked about the plan at the beginning, to make sure we all were going in the right direction.

To be honest I was a little unsure about the style the models had in mind. And I worried my mind would draw a blank.

I shouldn't have worried, they had plenty of ideas. It took me a while to change from my default shooting style, I relaxed and it flowed much better.

Rachelle built an incredible set; you hear the saying, brought everything except the kitchen sink. She can now say, "I bring everything, including the kitchen sink".

In addition to the kitchen set there was a living room. Again bold colour blocks were the theme.

I had an idea to have Rachelle ironing Nicole. Have to keep that young appearance, no wrinkles allowed in a Stepford household.

That was the part of the session I took time to latch onto; if you have suggestion, the weirder the better, say it.

Nicole's idea to be blown away by double hair-dryer wielding Rachelle took a few attempts to get right. We had time and it was another example of a shot I wouldn't have got at a busy workshop.

 The bathroom was a little restricted by Scarlet made it work. The blue tiles a great contrast to bright orange.

Always eager to do what it takes, here is a novel way to change someone's mind. Give it a quick whisk

If you haven't seen the film, the women in the town are implanted with a computer chip. It makes them into the men's ideal spouse's. I prefer a more independent minded women.

So this last scene is Scarlet and Nicole persuading Rachelle it's for the best.

All friends again.

Please add your address to my mailing list, or click the follow button to be kept informed about future posts.

Follow me on twitter. 

Leave a comment about this post. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this or any blog post.

For more of my work, go to my Facebook page.

and  
website

Published

Magazine published photoshoot.

Back in March I organised a studio session; intending to learn about and get experience of a more pressured photoshoot. The background is in this blog post.

There wasn't a big team, just three; Marylin, Jen the MUA and me. As you will have read in my precious post Marilyn did much more than model. I am very grateful to her for working so hard. But it didn't stop at the end of the shoot. She helped me choosing and processing the pictures. She planned to contact magazines, both printed and online, about publishing the set. It really pushed me to learn more about editing.
 
I could see the set improve as I added or took away pictures and how small edits changed pictures in big ways.

I had to consider the designer, and the MUA. They both needed shots they could use.

Orange dress, orange background; not easy to light. And then to ensure Marilyn's skin was lit correctly. It is one of my favourite shots though.

I wanted to provide a different look, one they hadn't had before.

And show off Marilyn's personality.

There were shadows cast by the multiple lights that I didn't want to remove completely. I tried to leave enough so that it had the appearance of only one defused light. Avoiding the floating in space look.

Here is a link to the published article.

This project was a challenge, which had me stressed. I was anxious about how the pictures might be received. But it was worth it.

Please add your address to my mailing list, or click the follow button to be kept informed about future posts.

Follow me on twitter. 

Leave a comment about this post. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this or any blog post.

For more of my work, go to my Facebook page.

and  
website