Category: shoot

Melissa from Winter

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I know I’m posting kind of randomly right now. I’ve had a number of shoots this year I’ve not posted anything from so I’ve been making an effort to go back and catch up on some of the better ones. Here I’m going all the way back to end of last year and first of this one with and some shoots with Melissa Troutt. She’s always one of my favorite models to work with and one of the best art models I’ve ever had the chance to collaborate with. We end up with some interesting things every time we work together and that’s part of what makes our collaborations so enjoyable. I spent some time last week going through those photos again this past week and realized I’d never posted any of these so I’m correcting that.

First a couple of her in a simple setup with her lying on a white sheet draped over a large sofa and natural light coming through a sheer curtain on a window to the side and behind me. I love the eye contact with the camera and her body pose in this image.

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Another that I really like. Her I think her face has a nice subtle emotion with a hint of sadness and regret. It’s a good pose again as it enforces that feeling of sadness in her body. I do wish I’d had Melissa move her forearm a bit to completely cover her nipple as i think the image would have worked even better as an implied nude.

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One more for this post from a different shoot with her that’s completely different. Here we have a much different setup. The ambient light provides just enough light to give shape and the primary light is a flash that shows through the crack in the door. I like the element of mystery to this one with the darkness on her body leaving her nude, but only barely revealed and the question of what she’s looking into the door for. Is she looking to get in or out? There’s a lot of stories I think can be placed into this photo.

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I’ve a couple more of Melissa and this same shoot for a later post, but that’s all for now.

Leanne Without Snake

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Adapting to change is always a useful ability for any photographer. I’ve rarely had a shoot where everything went according to original plan and often some of the best work comes from the unexpected. The unexpected can be good or it can be bad and the difference often comes from how well you adapt to the changes and work them into the shoot. Finding the water over a falls too hard to get a model into might lead you to posing a different way. An example of needing to adjust came after the snake encounter I mentioned a few postings ago.

I’d come to Arizona without planning to do many indoor shots, but I had planned for the possibility of a few and had brought some lighting for those with me. This meant Leanne and I were able to finish that shoot back at my hotel in Phoenix. I’d not planned anything beforehand so I largely had to make this up on the fly, but I think it worked out in the end. While I’d hoped to get in much more outdoor time with her, the results of the indoor work I think came in quite nice.

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 Leanne

In the Woods with Porcelain

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There has been a lot of poor luck around my outdoor work this year. Many planned outdoor work was postponed by the rainy weather that’s been common this spring and early summer and much by cancelations, postponements, and rescheduling. And then there was my encounter with a reptile in Arizona. Still I have gotten a few nice outdoor shoots in this year such as this one in May with Porcelain. We were a bit constrained on time so we headed to one of my favorite locations near Asheville to get in a quick shoot.

The heavy rain of the weeks before meant a lot of water over the falls and I spent most of the shoot standing in water resulting in a later purchase of new socks. It also meant getting her her into the falls would definitely not have been safe and the sun wasn’t in the best spot. Still I think we got a few nice shots from the shoot.

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Snakes … Why Did There Have to Be…

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Okay so the title gives away the ending, but there are photos so indulge me. My plan for June included a trip to Arizona. Let’s just say almost nothing went according to plan. In fact I’d go as far as to say it would be hard to describe the trip without using the word “cluster.”

In spite of the problems I did have the chance to work in a few nice shoots. Near the end of my time in Phoenix I had the chance to work with Leanne, a wonderful model suggested by a friend. We’d planned a shoot in the desert outside the city. Everything went perfectly at first. It was hot, about 110 that day as I recall, but we’d scheduled the late afternoon past the worst of the day’s heat. We headed to the location and started to work right before the good golden light of sunset moved in.

The first shooting location went well. We found a nice rock formation near the top edge of a small canyon. The timing worked perfectly since we arrived as the sun started to set providing that wonderful golden light. This image comes from that first area and is probably my favorite of the outdoor images of the day.

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We next moved to a new spot and worked for a few minutes. The sun really started getting a nice glow at this point leading to these two images.

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 Leanne

Perhaps a minute after the second of those two images, I looked down before moving to my left to reposition. It’s a habit I’ve developed in years of outdoor shooting on occasionally iffy terrain. It also is something I’d drilled in while planning for some backpacking in the desert that had been planned to be careful where you put your foot or hand for any of the less desirable desert residents that might be around.

As you probably guessed from the title, in this case it was a very good thing. When I looked in the direction I’d planned to move I saw a rattlesnake coiled up about three feet away (a speckled rattlesnake to be exact). No rattle or threatening stance, but just the reptile trying to blend in and not be seen. I froze, told Leanne not to move either, and then very slowly move to a safer distance before more quickly moving much further away. Once out of danger we gathered our things and left the area to our new little friend.

I’m not overly fond of snakes, in fact I’d go as far as to say I have a phobia of them. Leanne also didn’t seem eager to continue working in the area after the encounter so that ended the outdoor shooting for the day. We did some more work indoors later, but those will come another time. The lesson here is to be aware of your surroundings when shooting outdoors. The snake was camouflaged very well against the rock and had I not taken the time to distinctly look around I would have moved directly toward him in my next step. Instead all escaped unharmed.

I have to say though, worst shoot crasher ever.

Orias with Invisible Man

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I usually go into a shoot with the concepts that I want to work around pretty much in mind. Often though when working with a model the two of us combine ideas and produce something different than the original plan, and usually to a better result. These photos arose from that. Orias and I were working on some images with her wearing black gloves and I noted an almost Venus De Milo effect when I moved to a low key lighting against a black background. We explored that concept and This led to the idea of playing up that using the fact that wearing flat black on this background and lighting left those parts invisible. We played with it a few different ways. First some shots with someone else draped in black behind her and out of the light. The result is the other person isn’t visible and where his body overlays hers you get an almost cut out effect. The concept is actually pretty old. I believe it goes back to stage magic in the 1800’s if not earlier. In this first photo you can just see the arm to the right of the model.

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In some other images we shifted a bit. Here you can see how her arms disappear where she’s wearing the gloves while only the non black covered arms of the other person are visible. I’d prefer an assistant to stand in as the shadow here, but without one I had to improvise and work on both sides of the camera. Needles to say, this requires a very professional approach and a lot of trust between model and photographer given the contact involved. I’m wearing black pants, a black shirt, and a black ski mask pulled down. Even a slight sliver of skin showed up in photos and in one of these I did have to clone out a small element of my neck that peeked out during the shot. The camera is mounted on a tripod. A wireless remote allowed triggering of the camera and a delayed timer on the camera allows the shot to be triggered and then to finish posing.

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An interesting set of images and while not something I’d do everyday or even that often, I think they came out well.

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Noir with Shelby J

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Had the chance to work with Shelby back in April. We did a number of styles of work, but my favorites from the shoot came from some later images. Both are interestingly implied nudes where Shelby is only lit by a single light that’s been tightened down to a small circle of light. The first is the noir styled image. I intentionally left the light visible here as I like the effect of it almost as a camera at the side and I think gives the overall image a bit more interesting feel that ties in with her expression. I’d consider this an implied shot even though her nipple is just visible under one arm.

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From just a bit later comes another image. This one I leave color thought the lighting is similar, in this case reduced to a bright strip with barn doors on the strobe. I like the intense look from Shelby off the camera here. Again an implied shot.

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Overall a nice shoot and there are some other photos I’ll come back and share at a later time.

Working with Ivy lee

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Had the chance to work with Ivy Lee for the first time last month. A nice lingerie shot from some glamour work we did early on. I’ve picked up a new plugin for black and white work that I’m playing with so look for some of the more art styled and nudes later on.

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