For the final part of the shoot with Shelley we headed towards the Wellington South Coast where we hoped we would be in time for golden light. Those hopes were quickly dashed as we ran into rain in Lower Hutt, and as we approached the Ngaranga interchange, with the wipers on full, I was close to calling it off and taking the girls home. But then I looked across to the airport and could see clear sky on that side, and as that was where we heading hoped for the best.
As it turned out we were ok at beach. I had chosen Breaker Bay because it is a clothing optional beach so I knew that we types of shots we had planned there would not cause offence. As it was we pretty much had the beach to ourselves anyway.
We started in a black corset that Shelley totally rocked, then moved onto the fabric drapes. As we were trying to travel light the Godox AD600 was used in a collapsible beauty dish.
I love shooting with drapes, and with the rapid recharge available in the lights, you can let the model simply play with them and then chose the best.
While the setting sun did briefly light up the lower lighthouse at Pencarrow Head there was never any form of golden light on the beach itself.
As Shelley is not self conscious about her body we finished with a series of full nudes. When the images were loaded I got a great comment from Shelley.
Thank you so much for the amazing day & such professional work
The second shoot at the waterfall for 2015 involved Sian as the model. I have shot Sian twice before and so I knew she was very comfortable in front of the camera. The shoot happened earlier than the previous one as she wanted to go house hunting in the afternoon.
While these waterfall shoot are intended to incorporate drapes or nudes we actually started with Sian fully clothed as I have had this dress in the cupboard for a while and I wanted to test out shots closer to the top fall. As this part of the location is fully visible from the track I tend the ensure that not to much skin is on display from this point.
I have wanted to use this dress in a water shot for a while and given that this part of the fall is fully visible from the path made perfect sense.
We then moved onto using a length of a satin type material on the large rock and around the top of the second falls. This material is nearly 5 metres in length and when it gets wet becomes fairly heavy. As such I impressed to Sian that she was in a secure position on the rock before she let the material go anywhere near the water.
This length of satin is about 5 meters so it was able to stretch a long way. We had to be careful though because when it got wet it became very heavy.
We then moved down to the pool at the bottom of the lower fall. Sian was willing to go into it and so we used my monopod as a gauge to work out how deep it was. Once it was determined that the pool was not too deep Sian took a position by the falls. I wanted to try a longer exposure but there was no place to mount a tripod so I attached the monopod to the camera instead. The shot is not completely sharp but close enough for essentially a hand hold at 1/6 of a second at f13.
Sian was willing to go into the pool and go without the drapes. Here we tried a slower shutter.
We then moved out of the pool and Sian wrapped a length of red organza around her. The shot is nice however the material in the water does not have a lot of live to it unlike the blue organza used in the previous shoot. This was totally due to the angle of the sun not directly lighting up the material.
This red organza spread out great, however where it went into the water falls a little flat.
Sian then agreed to lose the drape and we would slow the shutter down. This image was essentially hand held at 1/13 second at f22. The shot is virtually straight out of camera. I would have to say that it is my favourite image of the shoot. It has a very classical look to it.
My favourite shot of the day.
I was relatively pleased with the results of the shoot, however when Sian looked at them she thought that she could improve on some of her expressions so we are planning another visit to the falls. I also still have a list of other models who want to take part so this series will run for a whole yet.
Last year I took a series of images at a local waterfall with models in fabric drapes (which you can read here) and decided that this year I would work further on the series. So I posted a casting call on Facebook and got enough interest for a whole series of shoots. One thing that had disappointed me about the images from the previous series was that the underwear the girls was wearing showed through and disrupted the flow of the fabric. So this year I made it quite clear that no underwear was permitted.
The first shoot in the 2015 series took place last Sunday with Grace (who had been a make up artists on a number of my shoots as well as being my book queen). Her mum Caroline asked to come as well and I was only too happy to have her along as a extra pair of hands.
On the Saturday I went up the falls and checked that nothing had changed significantly since last year. It also gave me the opportunity to scout out the area and plan where each shot was to take place. The little falls are down a slope from the main track which in summer is very popular. Given the lack of clothing I wanted to work out how much of the shoot area could be seen from the track.
Sunday dawned beautiful and we went through three drapes for the shot. We started on the main rock with a multi colored silk. Then we moved slightly down and shot a white lace material and finally with a blue organza that I ordered specifically for this year.
Green silk on the top rock
White lace
Caroline helping out
The blue organza took on a plastic look when wet
The area is quite slippery in areas and as cameras and water don’t mix I tried to particularly careful.
Light was quite an issue in that in some areas there was not enough and in other too much. For some images a flash was used to add a bit of fill and in some cases it was bounced off a gold reflector to add a bit of warmth.
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