Still shooting as I can, but life still busy and editing is still not getting high enough in the priority list at the moment. Though it’s a bit late for national cat day, here’s my kitty Morticia working herself into my shoot with Xlcr Moon last night. @xlcrmoon
These are from working with Xlcr Moon back in late July. The odd weather of this summer continues, but this marked the start of a turn around in my luck when it came to the weather. After being rained out much of the spring and Murphy’s Law winning in Arizona, this shoot marked the start of a run of close calls, but successful outdoor work.
There’s something about this location that often brings me to mind of fairy tale shoots. I think it’s a combination of the outstanding greenery there this time of year, the beautiful streams that flow through the area, and the wonderful rocks and boulders that are scattered around. I’ve shot here probably more than any other location over the last four years and I doubt most could tell photos taken yards apart. These photos are from a spot there I’d not actually used in a couple years and like how they came out. The white dress and bright green I think give it that fairy tell look here.
Happy whichever holiday you celebrate this time of year.
And a photo of Xlcr Moon from back in October.
An obvious shoot idea for someone that often photographs models outdoors is for various parts of nature on the model. I’ve done a few of these such as fall leaves covering an otherwise nude model to insects on a model. One that had never quite worked out was having a butterfly land on a model for a few photos. There have been encounters with butterflies in the past at shoots, but they just don’t seem to want to cooperate. They seem quite camera shy in fact. For some reasons the butterflies would much rather land on me than the young, pretty model that I’m photographing. I’ve even had them land on the camera, though not the lens which would at least end up with an interesting angle. Fact is that butterflies just don’t cooperate for me.
So when Xlcr Moon and I went for an outdoor shoot I had no thought of them. In late June where we are going I knew they would be common. In my planning though I had given much more thought to the last rhodedendrum flowers as background. We met up for an early shoot, which was a good thing given the worst of a heat wave coincided with our shoot set up weeks before. Luckily we’d planned to start early and a bit up into the mountains which let us avoid the worst of the heat of a day that neared 100 degrees. That special southern blend of temperatures and humidity always makes outdoors shoot draining as the summer turns into July.
As we arrive at the first location, Moon posing in a stream, the butterflies were a constant swarm around us. Teasing, but never quite landing until…
Which is why Moon is now known as the butterfly whisperer.
One of my goals for November and December was to try to experiment with some new concepts and ideas. I already posted about some work with the Japanese lanterns, but there were other concepts. Another idea I wanted to work with included water indoors.
Most of my outdoor shoots are located near streams, lakes, or rivers because I enjoy combining the nude with water. If we shoot, and the temperatures are warm enough (or even close to warm enough), then expect you’ll likely end up wet by the end. Of course that only works for those months a model can comfortably pose in the water. Even if the air is warm, the water coming down mountain streams can be much colder. Really it seems that May through October seems to mark the limits with the first and last of those months being iffy. For instance I worked with Keira outside on a comfortable day at the end of September on a day, but saw snow the next day. I got in two outdoor shoots in October thanks to nice temperatures and luck. Still in all three shoots there were limits to the amount of time I could get the models into the water due to the cooler air.
So, I’ve begun to explore working with water inside. Again as with the first shoot with the Japanese lanterns, these are more experimenting with a concept than a refined idea. First I tried shooting by dribbling water on a model. Charlie Kristine did some nice work with this one as I subjected her to something a little too close to water torture. I did get a few good images, but realized I’d need to go somewhere else to get the results I hoped. And the table in the photo was not harmed creating this photo.
Next I worked with Rachel Dashae for the first time and we did some work on the idea. Here I put her into my shower. Lighting the tiny bathroom proved to be quite a challenge, but again I was able to produce some results I liked.
Last model I worked with this idea on was Xlcr Moon. She brought the wonderful, and in retrospect obvious, idea of using oil to help bead the water on her body. The results completed more what I’d been looking for in these shoots and this photo shows I think the best example of the concept.
Continuing my way behind catch up of the shoots from May, I got the chance to work with model Xlcr Moon last month. I’d not been home for long after my shoot with Keira Grant back in May when I got a message from Xlcr Moon. She and I had talked about setting up a shoot, but the timing hadn’t looked promising until June. Now though she was heading out for a trip a bit early and wanted to see if I could do a shoot the the next day. Luckily I had the evening free and after a bit of texting back and forth we’d managed to set up a shoot.
We met that evening and worked together for a couple hours. I’ve been coming back inside a bit more recently after spending a lot of the year after it warmed up outdoors. While I do love outdoor shooting, sometimes you want to explore ideas and concentrate on an emotion or concept that really just doesn’t work outside well. At the first of the shoot we did a set exploring the idea of sadness and loss. After that we worked on some bodyscape images with her. She did great work and you can see my favorite from the shoot to the right.
More images from the shoot with Xlcr Moon are also now up on Uncovered Visions.