In this post, I’m going to cover a concept shoot with Rachel. In the next two posts, I’ll share more about the experience with around 200 vinyl records. The records were all classical discards from a bookfest that my wife is involved with.  I had them stored in boxes in the garage for around two years before I started using them. I had used a small number to build a stool which was incorporated in my shoot with Lucy.

In the studio I had positioned two sheets of plywood as a backdrop. Onto this I attached overlapping records using small nails to hang them up. It took the best part of two hours to nail them all in. I lost count of how many times I hit my thumb during the process.

On the floor  I placed plywood planking as I thought this gave a better look than the carpet. The records stack consisted of groups of ten records. These were glued together. A central steel rod gave it stability.

The video below show what the overall studio set look like as well as the lighting positions.

The actual lighting is shown in the diagram below.  It consisted of a Godox AD600 shooting into a 1.5m softbox positioned 90° to Rachel. At the rear of the room my Elinchrom D400 was shooting into a 7 foot umbrella with diffusion covering it. This light was being fired by an optical slave built in. The video shows a hairlight but this was not actually used.

For the first shoot, I had Rachel wear a selection of clothes and accessories that I had acquired from thrift shops. I felt these items had a 1960s sort of vibe to them.

As with most of my shoots I tend to not direct the model, but rather let them do what they want. I find that this produces much more relaxed and better images. It does help when you are working with an experience model such as Rachel.

All of the images in this post were shot on my Lumix G9 at the following setting 1/200s f8 ISO200 with focal lengths ranging from 24mm to 32mm. The combination of 1/200s and f8 ensures that I have full control of the light while giving me a reasonable depth of field. I am operating in a small studio with only 2.4m (8 feet) available between my model and camera. So if I want full body I am forced to shoot wide. This is not an issue if you place the subject in the middle third of the frame.