On the week before I returned to work from Holiday I discovered that I had been invited to join a Wellington Facebook group for Models, Makeup Artists (MUA) and Photographers who wanted to collaborate on projects. Within a very short time I had a shoot set up with Ivy who was both a MUA and a stylist and a couple of models that she had arranged. Ivy showed me an example of the sort of shots she was looking for so I had a clear idea what we were out to shoot.

The shoot happened in a multi-story building in Tasman Street Wellington in the space below where she lived. The space was a large open plan room at least 30 meters by 15 meter and with a double height ceiling. It had been decorated and furnished with an amazing collection of items including one large graffiti art mural. It was really like one of those New York apartments that you see in the movies. The minute I saw it I knew this was going to be a great location.

The space was rented to a whole lot of guys and Ivy had spent about 2 hours the previous day removing stuff from it.

One of the original models cancelled out and so Ivy managed to find a replacement (Grace) in addition to June (who models under the stage name of Little Miss Moon). She had hoped that some of the guys who lived there would also model but all of them chickened out.

While the girls got their makeup on I sorted out what where we were going to shoot, as there was no shortage of spaces. We were going to start using a corner area and an old wicker chair. This was in a corner next to a couple of windows which presented an interesting problem. Namely how to set up the lights in such a way to effective light the model but not get the reflections on the flash in the windows.

I was using my two Elinchrom strobes in softboxes and it took a little fiddling to set them up but eventually we did with the following results.

We then moved on the second area which was the graffiti wall, and posing the two girls together. The wall was a great backdrop and the only real issue we ran into was that the model were different heights. A quick change of footwear and the following results were gained.

Using the same setup we then took a few of Grace alone.

Finally if you have an indoor venue that has a swing in the middle of it you just have to use it. Ivy selected a very flowing skirt but had June wear it like a dress which was very effective.

While I would like to use some of the other parts of the room we ran out of time.

The pity with this location is that the building does not meet earthquake standards and in March is being demolished. A building with a huge degree of character will be replaced with a set of tiny boxed apartments.