Each year the six photographic clubs in the Wellington area have a print competition. The host club sets 10 topics and each club submits a single image. I have entered images for selection in most years, and have normally had at least one selected by the Hutt Camera Club. This year was no different and I submitted images in two categories.
The judging was held last night and I was thrilled when my entry in the “reflections” category won, with the judge raving about the image.
Afterwards the images attracted a lot of attention and I received a lot of questions about how it had been produced.
When I had seen the category “reflections” I knew that I wanted to create something quite different. A very similar topic was used in 2011 and that time I used a mirror as well. (you can read about that one on this link).
Fortunately just down the road from work is an unusual shop selling a wide of mirrors. It is set out more like an old curiosity shop, and so i knew that it would make a great location. The shop describes itself as a gentleman’s destination shop so I knew that I wanted a particular look for the person. Fortunately I knew that Wellington wedding photographer Jason Naylor fitted that bill, and he agreed to take part.
We had to wait a couple of months to get a time that was not so chaotic for him and the shop owner. We will given full run of the shop after it closed to the public. My daughter assisted with helping set up the mirrors.
The image was lit with a single strobe placed immediately in front of Jason firing into my 7 foot parabolic umbrella. A Lumecube was placed on a light stand just behind him (camera left) to add a little separation.
The shot as presented is pretty much straight out of camera. Photoshop was used to set the tone of the image along with a little dodging. The fifth mirror was a little bit of a mistake however I quite like how it adds a little bit to the image.
Brittany (styled by Zaria and makeup by Matty)
In 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.
We 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.
I 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.
It was quite a fun shoot and I look forward to do others with Tricia in the future.
pwfotos 