Fashionable Lens

There are lots of fashions within photography with gear and I have read many times in interviews of notable photographers that their favourite lens is the 85mm 1.4 and that this lens is also the choice of many a wedding photographer. It's an expensive lens to just follow fashions with, and anyway I felt I had things covered with the brilliant Nikon 28-70 and 70-200 and the 105 micro in that sort of territory.

However, having made the move to Nikon D800s and now beginning to move much more out of the studio, I finally succumbed and having used it, without any regrets. I had read up the reports on just how sharp it would be if you really went for that minimum depth of field and all the testers and critiques seem to agree.

The Bokeh really is lovely too. Shooting out at night is also something I didn't do much and the combination of that extra light and shallow depth of field is really nice to work with.

I'll looking forward now to doing a piece with images on some real results from a good shoot.

Shooting actors

A have read that a number of established photographers love to work with actors due to their ability to act and generally emote. There are many models who look great but are unable to emote or have just worked with many photographers who have not expected them to do so. We all get frustrated with our work at times and I think if you didn’t then you might not improve. I certainly want more out of my images and working with models for editorial work that can show emotion subtle or otherwise is essential.

 

 

 Kattreya is a model and young actress that replied to a casting I put out on StarNow and her look along with what I read about her acting experience look like it made her a great model to shoot with.

 

 

 This is a relatively simple portrait that has been lightly edited and left quite gritty. I love all the feeling and character in the image. Kattreya's eyes so alive and a great feeling of mood and depth. I was also working here for the first time with Amy Lou Palmer on make-up and hair and that also turned  out to be a great experience. I really like the way we worked together, her abilities and ideas. Shoots like this are always a team event.

 

 

I then asked Kattreya to be even more expressive or even over the top. Love this. Definitely not bland and plenty of impact.

 

 

 We then decided to go for a more fun and commercial look and Amy was in the middle of putting some curls in our model's hair when we got the idea to leave the curlers in and also use these white petticoats that we keep in the studio to give more volume to an otherwise ordinary dress,

 

 

The background is the same in both images but fully lit in the second with a couple of extra strobes.

 

We finally went for a more high-key moody look with one of Aksara's great garments from a previous shoot.

 

This is a small sample of images from the shoot and you can see that I love to create different looks and moods in my studio white space and to do this it's essential to have a great team. Thanks to Amy and Kattreya. Great work.

Showing emotion

Had a first shoot with model Amber Tutton using garments designed by Aksara and Jo Gooding as MUA. I always worry about working with new models as while I can see how they look from their portfolio I am not sure how well they can show subtle or strong emotion. Of course I use various methods to encourage my models to emote but this can be anthing from difficult to impossible depending on the model. There is nothing worse than dead looking eyes or just the false smile. However I was lucky because considering how long Amber has been shooting I was really pleased with her look and ability to emote. Great work.

What helped was having great garments that look different. I does not help a fashion style shoot when all you have to work with is normal everyday high street garments. Fortunately we had Aksara on board who had just finished her fashion degree and had a range of great garments for us. I love working with student designers as they often have great imagination and few restrictions and are also not yet bound by the pressures of commercialism.

As usual i like to get as much out of the shoot as possible which means that I want to shoot some completely different styles but in this case with the same range of great garments from Aksara. At first I thought they might be difficult to shoot as some black materials can be incredibly light absorbing and difficult to when it comes to showing detail. Shooting with a D800 helps as there is always so much detail in the blacks to be brought back if needed.

 

I love Ambers look and poses here, strong but not over the top and with some sophistication. A great look.

 

 

 We did some beauty shots before moving onto something more high key and more about the images themselves as oposed to properly featuring the garments. This allows more mood to come into the images and this is what I like myself.

 

 

 

 



 A most enjoyable shoot that left me wanting to work with both model and designer again.

Use two cameras at once!

I recently saw an interesting video on using two cameras at one and triggering the second camera from the first. Why do this? Well you might want a different view of those captured moments from a different viewpoint. This might be covering alternative angles, insurance of the critical moment capture, difficult places to shoot from or just behind the scene shots.

All it needs is the correct cable to connect your camera to a pocketwizard (hopefully you already have the pocketwizards) and the right switch set on the pocket wizard will mean that the shutter release press on one camera will fire the other camera simultaneously. If you are using flash then all will be sync'd light wise and your second camera can be on a standard or hybrid tripod. Cool.