Category Archives: Models

2022 Shoots, Lighting, Models, natural light

A day in the studio

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1/100s 32mm

My style of photography generally involves one or two models and myself. Therefore, when the opportunity arises to shoot with other photographers, I will take it for the social aspect.

I saw a post on a local Facebook group. It was about a meet up starting at the Photospace Studios in Courtney Place. I was not sure what the plan was but I thought it was a good opportunity so I went along. The studio had been booked by a couple of the photographers who were practising their techniques. They are also arranged for several models to come in and were happy for others to join in.

The studio has a large bank of windows at one end. I took this as an opportunity to practice blending natural light with flash. While it had a number of backdrops and lights I was happy to let the others use that area.

I had taken my Godox V1 speedlight. I also took a small 26 inch soft box. I positioned each one to camera right every time.

The first model I shot was Natalia. We did a series of shoots images utilising the light coming in from the windows. As this was changing I was having to adjust the shutter speed on each image.

1/320s 30mm
1/250s 36mm
1/100s 32mm
1/125s 24mm
1/125s 24mm
1/125s 24mm

She had brought a white shirt. I asked her to wear just that to create a different look. All of the images in this post were shot on my Lumix G9 at f5 with ISO400. The shutter and focal lengths did change as shown against each image.

1/125s 36mm

Also present was Armish. I don’t normally get to shoot with a male model so this was a good opportunity. We did a couple of images of him initially with Natalia and then by himself.

1/125s 24mm

The final series of images where with Sean and Libby who were a couple and photographers as well. They were more than happy to pose for the others. It was good to be able to capture images of a couple who were comfortable interacting with each other.

1/80s 36mm

When I processed the images deal with several that looked much better in black-and-white than colour so that is how I presented them to them.

1/125s 24mm
1/125s 24mm

All of the models appeared to have a good time and I got positive feedback when the images were sent to them.

2021 Shoots, Models, natural light

Sara on the Wharf

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1/1600s f5 180mm ISO200

I always take some time to photograph a model when they are booked for one of my concept shoots. I aim to create images that they may be able to use within their portfolio. It was the same with Sara after we had finished the monsoon girl shoot.

Sarah changed out of her wet clothes. We then headed across the road to the wharf in Evans Bay. There, we took a series of images. These images tried to reflect different moods.

1/1250s f5 70mm ISO200

All the images were shot using natural light and as such I had the camera in Aperture Priority. I set f5 so that I would still have a reasonable depth of field on Sara. This setting allowed the background to fall out of focus.

They were all shot with my 70-200mm f2.8 lens on my Nikon D600. The individual settings are shown against each image.

1/1250s f5 70mm ISO200
1/320s f5 70mm ISO200

Towards the end of our session I swapped lenses to my Lensbaby Composer. This is a totally manual lens that creates a very narrow area of focus within the image. It creates great results but it is quite tricky to work with.

1/2500s f2.8 ISO200

When I delivered the photos to Sara, she was really pleased with them. That is the ultimate time of any model shoot.

Looking back now I realise that the images could have done with a little lift from flash.

2021 Shoots, Concept Images, Models

Sara – Recreating a Classic

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In photography, as with other art forms, there is nothing wrong with taking inspiration from the work of others. Or even copying it as long as you don’t try to pass it off as your own.

I have long time admirer of work of New Zealand photographer Brian Brake OBE. He shot editorial series through the 1950’s – 1970’s appearing in such publications as Life.

Monsoon girl is Brake’s most famous image. It was also controversial because it was a ‘set-up’ shot shown in the context of photojournalism, where viewers assume the images are ‘real life’ witnessed by the photographer.

Monsoon Girl by Brian Brake

The subject, Aparna Das Gupta (later Aparna Sen), was an actress on a movie set. Many years later, she recalled that Brake, ‘…took me up to the terrace, had me wear a red sari in the way a village girl does, and asked me to wear a green stud in my nose. …Someone had a large watering can, and they poured water over me. Brake said, “Feel the rain on your face.”’

Given that it was a set up shot I knew we could recreate it without having to travel to India. I posted a casting call on Facebook for a model with Indian heritage and Sara responded so we set up a time.

As in the original the rain was provided via a watering can which was held by my daughter . We filled it with warm water.

To recreate the golden light of the original, I placed a full CTO gel over the AD600 that was firing into a 65cm soft box. If you look carefully at the first shot you will see that the orange is picked up in some of the water droplets.

Because I did not want a direct copy of Brian’s image I did not get Sara to wear a sari. Rather she chose a simple white dress.

All images were taken with my Nikon D 600 camera using a 70-200mm f2 .8 lens. The lens gave with the option of keeping well away from the water. The images were mainly shot at 1/200s f5 ISO200.

Sara really nailed the look I was going for and I was really pleased with the final image.

2022 Shoots, Models

Tied up in Corsets

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Towards the end of our shoot day we had a little fun with some corsets that Rachel had also brought. We stripped out the outer lace layer from her skirt and positioned her

For the lighting we reverted back to the setup used earlier. The main light was a Godox AD600 in a 1.5m octabox positioned at 90° to Rachel. The light was covered with a grid so that I could control the direction of it. This lighting positioned closely resembled the angle that the sun had been when the birds were photographed.

Although the image below shows it as a square was actually octagonal. On the opposite side to the main light I positioned a white polystyrene reflector to provide fill. At the rear of the studio I had an Elinchrom D400 firing into the 7 foot umbrella covered with diffusion. This was solely to fill-in the shadows. While Elinchrom and Godox lights operate on different triggers, I could use the optical slave on the Elinchrom and this worked really well.

As we had a pile of leaves available she decided to have a bit of fun with them . Firstly throwing them in the air. This proved harder than it would appear as you needed to time the shutter to the throw while trying to not have too many leaves cover Rachels’ face.

Then she decided to get covered with them. I tilted the main lignt slight down for these images.

This part of the shoot gave us another set of usable images completely different to anything else that we had shot that day.

For those that like the technical aspects the images were shot with my Nikon D600 1/200s f7.1 ISO200 using a 50mm prime lens.

2021 Shoots, Concept Images, Models

Steampunk Shoot

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When I book a session with a model especially one where I’m spending some time setting up the studio I would generally try to maximise our time together and shoot multiple outfits

When we started planning for Rachel to come out for the bird lady she happened to mention that she had some steam punk goggles and gloves and so we decided to incorporate them on the day

We swapped out the top half of her costume. We replaced it with a leather corset. I brought in a prop gun that I had painted.

The lighting for the set up was slightly different than used earlier in the day. The main light was a 1.5 meter octabox with a grid positioned 90° to Rachel. On the opposite side a reflector was brought in close to provide some fill.

To add some atmosphere to the images I had borrowed a smoke machine from another photographer. The speedlight shown in the diagram was used only in the images with the smoke. To really see the effect of smoke in an image it needs to be backlit.

It was a fun part of the shoot and I was really pleased with the images. All of the images were shot using a 50mm prime 1/200s f7.1 ISO200.

2021 Shoots, Concept Images, Lighting, Models

White Angel

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When Rachel and I started planning for the bird lady shoot, she mentioned that she had a white dress. She thought that it be suitable as a choice to the costume I was designing.

I believe that model shoots are collaborations. I had no problem with her bringing the outfit. So, we took some shots with her in it.

We also included the nest that would form part of the birdlady shoot.

For the lighting I used two lights. My main light was a Godox AD600 in a 1.5m Octobox positioned at 90° to Rachel. The light was covered with a grid so that I control the direction of it. This lighting positioned closely resembled the angle that the sun had been when the birds were photographed.

The imaged were shot using my Nikon D600 f7.1 1/200s ISO200 on a 50mm prime lens.

Although the image below shows it as a square was actually octagonal. On the opposite side to the main light, I positioned a white polystyrene reflector. It provided a bit of fill. At the rear of the studio, I had an Elinchrom D400 firing into the 7 foot umbrella covered with diffusion. This was solely to fill-in the shadows. While Elinchrom and Godox lights operate on different triggers, I could use the optical slave on the Elinchrom. This approach worked really well.

In post I added the wings and the bird sitting on the nest. The image was now looking very angelic so I photographed a glass bowl to create the halo.

The feel of this image is quite different to the birdlady but in someways very complimentary.

2021 Shoots, Location Shoots, Models

Sam in the alleyways

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The second model who I shot on my trip to Invercargill was Samantha. She was looking for an urban theme so in the afternoon I had wandered around the town and found some interesting alleyways and rear areas that look promising.

f1.7 1/50s ISO800

We started in an alleyway an old door with peeling paint that provides a great texture. As the shoot had begun at 5:00pm, in the middle of winter, we were on the last light of the day hence I was shooting on a wide open aperture and slow shutter speed.

The next location was a rear parking where I found a set of stairs. By now it was quite dark so I used a video light on camera and a speedlight positions behind Samantha to light the back of her head.

F3.5 1/60s ISO200 Video Light & Speedlight

The final location was in an old warehouse that has been turned into a carpark. As in many cities the walls had attracted graffiti artists. I used the same video light as my main light but positioned a speedlight behind Samantha but aimed at the wall so that we would see some of the environment. Without that light it would have been a black space.

F6.3 1/100s ISO200 Video Light & Speedlight

The whole shoot took around 90 minutes even though we were moving from location to location. My earlier visit to Skype out locations paid off as I did not waste time figuring out where we could shoot.

Samantha seem to be pleased with the final images.

2021 Shoots, Location Shoots, Models, natural light

Raj in Queens Park

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1/100s f5.6 ISO200 – bare speedlight

In July 2021 I travelled down to Invercargill to be the host on a Photographic Society of New Zealand (PSNZ) dance workshop. At the time I was president of PSNZ, and was also not working, so when I discovered that the Southland Photographics Society had their meeting on the Thursday before I travelled down early to visit them. That meant that I had the free day on the Friday.

On a previous visit to Invercargill I had discovered an area of Queens Gardens called the Stumpery. They have arranged large tree stumps into an area that you can walk around and through. Essentially it is a botanical piece of art.

From that visit I knew that I wanted to shoot there so in addition to packing my usual clothes, and gear for the workshop, I packed several lens of fabric and a lightstand.

Via a Facebook modelling group I reached out to see if there were any models interested in shooting with me on the Friday and Raj replied. We arranged to meet at the entrance to the gardens and made our way to the Stumpery.

After sum initial shoots in the centre of the Stumpery we moved to the edge and started to bring in the longer pieces of fabric. She was keen enough to climb up on the structures. By this stage we were losing the natural light so I wedged the speed light after the side to add more light.

1/160s f5.6 ISO 200. – bare speedlight

Moved around the gardens to an area with a Japanese Asian influence and I used the archway to pose her. I covered the speed light with an orange gell to fake golden light.

1/400s f3.2 ISO200 – Gelled speedlight
1/160s f5 ISO200 – bare speedlight

For the final set of images moved to water feature and I use the second piece of lace that I had brought down. Again I used a bare speedlight to add a little bit of light to the image.

One of the things that’s important when shooting at any location is to look at how changing your angle can change the image. In the images above and below Raj is essentially in the same location but I have moved to a different shooting point and in the process change the feel of the images.

1/60s f6.3 ISO 200 – bare speedlight

It was a good shoot and I was pleased with the result.

2021 Shoots, Concept Images, Makeup / Hair, Models

Behind the Scenes: Shaman Photo Shoot

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Ideas for shoots quite often start with prop and develop from that. That was certainly the case with my Sharman shoot which started when I was given some pieces of old fur costume that had been used by extras in the television series Xena Warrior Princess.

I knew that I wanted to do something tribal and primitive with them. And that developed into the concept of a witch doctor. The top of the costume was a single piece but for the bottom I glued pieces of the fur onto a nude coloured pantie. I made a headpiece out of dried vines embellished with feathers. In my original design I had antlers as part of it but for these proved to be too difficult to stay on the head so they were used as a prop instead.

I had shot with Casey before on two occasions and I know that she would be willing to play the part. I also recruited a make up artist Erin Gibbons to create the look for me. I used a previous image of Casey that I altered in Photoshop so that she could see what I was going for.

I wanted to create an authentic looking environment for the Sharma so I made the facade of a hut at the bottom of our garden. I used two lightstands with a crossbar to which I attached pieces of hessian that had come from a double mattress. This was sewed to the uprights.

I then used three sticks and sewed them around the doorway closing off the gap with coco sacks that I had. I finally adored the door with three seal skulls that we have found the year before.

I was concerned about wind and so I had the structure both tied to the fence and anchored down. Fortunately wind did not become an issue.

In front of the heart I built a small fire pit using rocks gathered from the river.

As I wanted to control the light, and the set was outside, it was necessary to shoot in the evening. My main light was Godox AD600 in a 1.5m octagonal softbox. In addition I had a small LED constant line that was simply used to assist the camera to focus.

I wanted to have a real fire in the images but I also wanted to ensure the safety of my model. So in the initial shots a small lume cube with an orange gel was placed inside of thefire pit. This created a glow on Casey which I was unable to use in a composite if the actual fire. For this reason the camera was mounted on a tripod so that it would make compositing the images much easier.

As often happens it took nearly an hour to apply the make up and then we move Casey into the garage to apply slip clay to her body relying on a hairdryer to speed up the process.

Casey really got into the character and this really brought my idea to life.

As it turned out Casey did interact with the fire and this added further to the series. Although in some images I also added more of it for effect.

From a technical viewpoint the initial images without the fire we shot at 1/160s f8 ISO 200. When the fire was added the shutter was slowed to 1/100 as the fire was not as bright as the LED.

I was really pleased how the images came out and they were well received when they were posted one was submitted for New Zealand Camera and it appeared in the 2022 edition. This is an annual print publication of the Photographic Society of New Zealand and it is quite difficult to have images selected.

2021 Shoots, Location Shoots, Models, natural light, water

Melissa – River

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While I mainly enjoy shooting in the studio (due to the control it gives me) I also enjoy shoots the involve holder water. So when Melissa and I finish the studio series we made plans for another shoot when the weather warmed up.

The Hutt River is only a kilometre from my home but during the summer months it does run into the issue of an algal bloom, which means swimming in it is not recommended. As I don’t want my models ending up sick this meant it was out of the question. Fortunately on a walk over the summer I discovered a path out of the housing development up on Riverstone Terraces that lead to a reasonable size stream that was feeding the river.

I figured that the water would be safer here so Melissa and I planned to shoot and I pulled one of the ballgowns that is in my position.

While we were shooting in the middle of summer the reality was that the water temperature did not change very much therefore we knew that the whole shoot would need to be done within a short period of time. This is also the case with pool shoots anyway.

Most of the shots which taken using natural light however for a few I did bring a speed light which was positioned in the river on a tripod. The light was gelled orange so that we could attempt to recreate gold light.

Given that part of the river was deep enough for Melissa to be almost fully emerged we attempted a hair flip. This was not as difficult as it could have been and we managed a reasonable shot after only a couple of the teams.

It was a fun afternoon and I’m pleased with the results.