In 2014 I shot an image entitled “The Role of the Model” that you can find on this link. The image attracted a lot of attention and did quite well in competitions. So this year I decided to expand on the concept and shoot an additional 11 images.

After initial Facebook posts I got a very good response from models and designers wanting to take part.

Many of the images are planned to be composites so I could book a studio and take several shots in one go. For the first session I planned to tackle three of the images. This post is about the first image which I have entitled “See the model”.

The concept is simple that when a model goes down the catwalk she is no longer being seen as a person but rather it is clothes that are important. I intended to shoot the models against a green screen and composite in a catwalk at a later stage.

Through Donna from Voda Model Management I had the services of Newala, Shelby & Kelly. I had requested that they wear matched sets of lingerie and I shot them using a relatively simple two light arrangement against the backdrop as show in this image

The radio trigger of my lights decided to stop working the week before which meant on the day i had to fire a speed light off camera which would trigger the main lights using their optical sensors. This works to a degree, but with the major limitation that the time taken for the flash to recharge is considerably longer than for the strobes.

I think the girls had a lot of fun walking down an imaginary catwalk.

I had made contact with the organisers of Wellington Fashion Week to shoot the background. Unfortunately the 2015 shows got cancelled. I have now arranged to shoot a catwalk at the Eco-fashion show in June.

In the meantime I produce three draft images for the girls which are shown below.

I realised after the shoot that I should have asked to girls to wear colours other than black (which two did) as I am not sure how well the images are going to work once placed against a darkened runway.