Category Archives: Models

Concept Images, Models

Kat Pool Shoot (NSFW)

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LR_Kat_133032016-1During the warmer summer months I just love to do shoots that involve water. Unfortunately this year my usual spot has been a little inaccessible, and we were away for a good part of summer, so I decided to utilise a padding pool that I both late in 2014.

I have shot with Kat a number of times and I know that she is a very reliable model and great to work with. So when she answered by casting call there was no doubt I was going to use her.

The pool is about 2 metres long, 600mm wide and 300mm deep. As it is bright blue which would not fit with the shoot I used a number of my fabric lengths to line it using rocks from the garden to weigh the fabric down. A large rock was placed at the end of the pool that Kat could rest her head on.

LR_Kat_133032016-9As often happens with outdoor shoots the weather gods decided to exert the influence. On the weekend I had initially hoped to shoot the skies were clear and the weather really warm (28C/88F) so it would have been a very pleasant experience in the water. However the weekend I ended up shooting it was cloudy for most of the time and the temperature didn’t climb much above (20C/72F). This meant that the water in the pool did not heat up in any way and was quite cold.

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Kat is a real trooper, but as goosebumps are a real bitch to photoshop we shot very quickly so that we minimised the time in the water. I am really pleased with the results.

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Fashion, Models

Shoot at the old Brick works with Samantha

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Samantha-7In Palmerston North there is an old brick kiln that I was shown a number of years ago, and which I have always wanted to shoot in. I had a shoot set up about 2 years ago but the model flaked. Back then the site was fairly open and as a result there was a bit of graffiti and vandalism to it.

So when Whanganui model Samantha wanted to do a lingerie shoot I suggested the venue. As it turned out access to the site is now a lot more restricted, however I was able to track down the right person to contact and access was arranged.

Unfortunately when I turned up at the arranged key collection place at the arrange time, no one was home and I was unable to raise anyone on the phone. So I drove back to kiln where I was meeting Samantha and her boyfriend Ben, who I had been assured was well versed in the fine art of holding reflectors.

Samantha-6Samantha-8Samantha-9Samantha-10Samantha-12Samantha-11Samantha-13We waited around until the schedules time for the shoot hoping that the key would show up. However when it didn’t we made our way through a hole in the fence as I figured that I has permission to be there. Unfortunately once inside we discovered that steel bars had been installed on all of the entry points into the structure.

Rather than the whole shoot turning into a bust we decided to use the building and accompanying area for the shoot. While it did not have the same impact as the look I was going for I am still pleased with the resulting images.

We started with simply lingerie looks and then built them up with masks, capes and lengths of fake sur. In the end I tried a drape of material.

Samantha-15I received a text later in the evening apologising for the muck-up with the key which was caused because the guys wife had forgotten to put it outside when she left the place. I hope that on the third attempt I will manage to shoot in there but that won’t be until next year now.

Models

Sunday Morning in the country

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Tricia-1
The old style letterbox really added to the location.

 

Tricia lives and works on a dairy farm just outside the small township of Apiti which is 45 minutes north of Palmerston North. She has been keen to take part in one of my shoots for a number of years but we have never managed to time it right.

So when I booked the shoot at the kiln in Palmerston North I made contact with her to see if she wanted to get together in the morning. I left it totally up to her as to what she wanted to shoot.

It ended up that Tricia wanted two looks. The first was a country & western look. The second involved a sequinned dress and a local bridge. She hoped to shoot the first look inside of a shearing shed but had not been able to get permission to do so as many people now are over cautious sighting new health & safety regulations. So we opted for shooting on a gravel road not far from her house.

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Lonely road

Now normally I shoot in the studio which means I have full control over the lights. For both of these shots I would be shooting outside. In my opinion shooting in a studio is considerably easier than outside. The morning was a mixture of blue sky and dark clouds which meant that at any time was light was changing by several stops. I did not want to overpower the natural light with strobes so ended up using a large reflector to add in a little light in the shadows. Fortunately I packed a reflector holder as I did not have anyone else to help hold it.

The arrangement seemed to work reasonable well especially as I knew that with shooting in RAW I would have some margin of error when it came to both the shadows and highlights.

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Tricia is very proud of her tats

We then went back to her home and Tricia put on a black sequin dress and we headed to the local bridge. We had initially thought of shooting on the bridge but Tricia decided that she would like to shoot in the river itself. I was a little reluctant at first, as there was only the two of us, as for shoots involving dresses and water I tend to like having other people involved should the model get into trouble in the water. The dresses are often heavy when they are dry and triple their weight when wet.

This part of the shoot was really fun and the images came out really good.

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Fortunately the water was not too deep or fast running

Tricia-5It was quite a fun shoot and I look forward to do others with Tricia in the future.

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A little fun at the end. Tricia shows off her pasties.
Concept Images, Models

Kowhai girl

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LR20150926-12When I am shooting with models for the first time I have absolutely no problem if they bring along a girlfriend for support. I find that it makes them more at ease and therefore the shots are better. It is on the condition that the friend is prepared to help out. There has been the occasion that I have even encouraged the friend in front of the camera as well.

This was the case when Emma arrived for the Spring Goddess shoot with Josephine along for the ride. Josephine is an exchange student from Denmark. When I saw her I instantly wanted to shoot her, and I knew what I wanted.

In preparing for the shoot we had gathered some yellow Kowhai flowers but had not incorporated them (as the colours did not work together). They would work brilliantly with Josephine.

In addition Josephine had a natural beauty that really didn’t need any additional makeup so it meant that there was no additional work required by the makeup artist I was using on the day.LR20150926-13Lighting for the shot was a single light camera right in a white shoot through umbrella with a silver reflector placed camera left.

Concept Images, Models

The Spring Goddess Shoot – Emma

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The spring goddess on natures floral mattress
The spring goddess on natures floral mattress

Last year I took a series of images in the Autumn leaves that you can find on this link. At the time it was intended to be a single image, but as I looked around at all of the spring blossom I decided that maybe I should make it a series. So that is what is happening and I will schedule a shoot in each season.

I posted a facebook casting call and Emma agreed to take part and Anahera agreed to be the makeup artist (MUA). I firmly believe that in a collaborative shoot each person should be allowed to bring their own skills and contribute equally. For this reason I never tell the MUA’s exactly how I want the makeup done. Rather I tell them the overall concept and let them bring out their own creativity.

Anahera applies the finishing touches
Anahera applies the finishing touches

In the morning my daughter and I went round the neighbour and did some very selective pruning off the trees in blossom. Now I am no vandal so I ensure that I only removed small sections from branches that were in public areas, and also had grown to a point that the council would trim them anyway.

I had planned to use the bed of flowers that our camellia usually produces but in the week before the shoot it had produced very little so we had to go down the street and collect magnolia petals that had fallen from the trees.

As with the Autumn shoot the dress that Emma was wearing was largely constructed from lengths of material over a hooped petticoat. Lengths of the blossom were then placed over it.

LR20150926-3Now planning an outdoor shoot is always frought with issues and this one was no different. The biggest factor is the weather, and being spring it could not make up its mind what it wanted to do. As the shoot time approached it kept alternating between light rain and sun. As Emma was coming from an hour away I had to make a call at 11:00am and decided to do it regardless. I decided to set up a set in my garage studio and if it rained use that one instead. That is indeed what happened.

The studio setup
The studio setup

We ended up shooting inside which has meant a little bit more work in post than perhaps I originally envisaged.

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Lighting, Models, Workshops

Natural Light Session at Palmer Head

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A couple of weeks ago we had a speaker at the Hutt Camera Club, who blew eveyne away with his portraits that were taken with the bare minimum amount of gear. He had a series of low key images that were actually taken using only natural light.

Kat-11Now generally you associate low light low key images with those shot in studio, where you can control the light, but these were all shot using natural light. He mentioned that they had been shot at one of my favourite locations Palmer Head.

I thought this was a great opportunity to try something new and decided to turn it intp a workshop inviting other members of Hutt Camera club to tag along.

Kat agreed to be one model and my daughter Samantha as the other. I had been approached by a new makeup artist Wendy who wanted to add to her portfolio, so we went with a glamour look on Kat and a simple look on Samantha.

Kat-15As it typical at this time of year the sky was grey and the wind quite strong, but that did not affect us much as we were shooting inside. We based ourselves in the most sheltered location so that Wendy could work her magic.

The trick to achieving the look is to place the model by a window, then doing a meter reading of the brightest element of the highlight and then dialling in 2 stops of exposure compensation.

Samantha-2Once people has mastered that technique we then moved to another part of the structure that had larger openings and therefore more light. Here the group practises more high key images.

Despite the conditions everyone seemed to have fun.PHWS-1

Concept Images, Models

The Model Series – Getting ready

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The latest image in the model series is entitled “Getting Ready” and continues with the theme that models and the clothes are connected to a point that while getting ready the model would already be in them.

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For the shoot I was joined by two models that I have shot on a number of times before namely Renee (pink) and Sian (green). My home studio was set up like the dressing area of a show and we played with a number of different posing options before shooting the final image shown above.

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The shoot was done in really high spirits and the girls had a great time ironing each other.

For the final shot we carefully positioned Sian onto the ironing board and very quickly took several shots. While it was a reasonably study board I was not sure how well it would last given that it was not designed to hold as much weight as was on it.

Fortunately it lasted the distance and it was only as Sian was getting off it that the bracket gave way. As I had it set at a height that we do not normally use I doubt that I will get in too much trouble with my wife.

Concept Images, Models

The Model Series – Keeping Clean

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The third image in the model series was entitled “Keeping Cleaning”.  While the intention with each of the concepts is to produce a single image, this shoot has actually produced two, and so I am trying to sort out which one I will end up using in  the series.

Shot3-Keeping-Clean#2 Shot3-Keeping-Clean#3Not far from my home is a commercial laundry which I thought I could approach to get the background shots I needed. I had decided that it was better to composite the image rather than try to arrange for a location.

I cut a circle in another one of the bike boxes that had been obtained for the “Past Use By Date” shoot and then attached it to the front of the box. We stood the box up and then positioned it on two chairs to get it to the right height for the machine.

The mock up machine
The mock up machine

For the shot of Christa inside of the machine the box was lowered to the floor and she carefully climbed inside.

BTS-KeepClean-2I visited the laundry on a Saturday morning (when it was closed) and we took the required shots. The ones from the studio were on my iPad so that I could line this up as best as possible. The laundry manager was more than happy to help out and in fact she said that the machine was more than capable of handling Christa’s weight and that I could bring her along should the composites not work.

I tried to replicate the lighting as close as I could to that shot in the studio however an exact match was not possible as it was necessary to avoid reflection in the glass doors of the machine. As it was I was not able to completely eliminate them and had to fix the image in photoshop.

I was very pleased with the result that came out. The only issue with shooting against a green screen is that you can get a colour cast on the skin. This is shown in an earlier version of the composite. I still need to do some more work on removing this before the final image is produced.

By sheer fluke when I posted the images on Facebook one of the people who viewed it pointed out that the name on the machine Huebsch is German for “Pretty”. I have checked this out and it is not quite correct and in fact Hubsch is the correct spelling however they are pronounced the same way.

Concept Images, Models

The Model Series – Past Used by Date

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The second concept in the model series is based around the fact that fashion is very fleeting. I wanted to express this by having the girls piled in a box like the shops do with their end of line articles.

The final image
The final image

My friend Andrew operates a bike shop so I was able to obtain a number of large boxes that the bikes drive in. These were put together to make it large enough for the four models (Christa, Newala, Shelby & Kelly) to fit inside. All of the models come from Voda Model Management and with the exception of Christa were arranged by Donna.

The models get comfortable in the box
The models get comfortable in the box

There was a bit of fun when they first tried to climb in wearing their heels as they went through the bottom of the box, but we remedied that issue.

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The lighting for the shot was a single softbox boomed out over the box and the second one angled down. As noted in the previous shoot my trigger played up and so I had to use a speed light to trigger the lights. As shown in the image this was aimed away from the box so that it did not affect the other lights. I stood on top of a small stepladder to get the angle I wanted. The top of the ladder is quite large and so it is relatively safe to be up there.

The first grouping
The first grouping

We tried a number of combinations with the way that Christa lay across the top the others before we settled on the final combination. The girls were having a great time as it was a very different shoot from what they were used to.

To get the background I sneaked my camera into a local shopping mall and shot the front of the one of the shops from the balcony. Then it was a matter of compositing the images together and trying to get the lighting consistent.

 

 

Concept Images, Models

The model Series – See the model

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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

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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.Shot-2-See-the-Person-#3 Shot-2---See-the-Person Shot2---See-the-person-2

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.