Chelsea
So this is the product of the very latest shoot, and in some senses I'm kinda jumping the gun a little as there's so much more still hiding backstage waiting to go on here, but frankly, I don't care, the stuff from the shoot with Chelsea rocked hard and I'm real excited about so, so much of it.
We did two real styles, and looks. And this was the second. Fuelled by a recent behind the scenes video from a shoot for a well known annual publication where one of the models got dunked in a fish pond, I put it to Chelsea that we ought to try something similar. The money shot (as discreet as it is) is still to come, but this was a happy side angle. What turned out to be the most difficult concept of the shoot was actually posing and making 'contact' under water but Chelsea ran with it, and very quickly adapted and gave it her all. There's literally heaps of photos like this, which are in my own opinion, visually arresting as the result.
Doing this shoot with her was a very happy surprise. It was a coming together of a lot of things. A slightly inplausible approach to suggesting a shoot, someone who isn't in any way a model, who protested greatly in advance about being unphotogenic (I always knew different). It was the first time I really let rip and trusted a good 90% of both locations to being lit by the Orbis ringlight (you'll be pleased to know James, that it delivered big time). It was a blend of ideas, of genuine feedback and input from Chelsea, and of an open and very admirable approach to giving it all in the name of just trying, and to hopefully make nice photos.
For what looking back was such an inplausible series of things to line up, somehow it worked, and we both had such a monumental blast shooting this. She's fun, a lot of fun. She can work the camera like anyone I've ever met, pro model or not. I babbled with nerves and of pent up concentration the whole way through, and somehow it came out as joking around.
And you know what, in the context of this project, I've found it amazing looking back to be able to approach someone almost cold, to suggest a shoot knowing somewhere deep down that it'd work, and yet then to break that ice, to engage with someone and make some magic. And it never, ever fails to amaze me what wonderous things you can learn about someone when you take their picture, and that in the oddest of circumstances, such as being half submerged in a bath, when the photographer and the sitter click, it can show you guys, the viewing world so much.
For that little nugget of gem-like information, and as a reminder as to what you can do when taking people's pictures, I'm forever endedbted to Chelsea. She rocks. :)
(Strobist & off-camera flash info: 580 EX II fired via OC-E3 cord into Orbis ringlight adapter at about 1/4 power, balanced manually with ambient light.)
Chelsea
So this is the product of the very latest shoot, and in some senses I'm kinda jumping the gun a little as there's so much more still hiding backstage waiting to go on here, but frankly, I don't care, the stuff from the shoot with Chelsea rocked hard and I'm real excited about so, so much of it.
We did two real styles, and looks. And this was the second. Fuelled by a recent behind the scenes video from a shoot for a well known annual publication where one of the models got dunked in a fish pond, I put it to Chelsea that we ought to try something similar. The money shot (as discreet as it is) is still to come, but this was a happy side angle. What turned out to be the most difficult concept of the shoot was actually posing and making 'contact' under water but Chelsea ran with it, and very quickly adapted and gave it her all. There's literally heaps of photos like this, which are in my own opinion, visually arresting as the result.
Doing this shoot with her was a very happy surprise. It was a coming together of a lot of things. A slightly inplausible approach to suggesting a shoot, someone who isn't in any way a model, who protested greatly in advance about being unphotogenic (I always knew different). It was the first time I really let rip and trusted a good 90% of both locations to being lit by the Orbis ringlight (you'll be pleased to know James, that it delivered big time). It was a blend of ideas, of genuine feedback and input from Chelsea, and of an open and very admirable approach to giving it all in the name of just trying, and to hopefully make nice photos.
For what looking back was such an inplausible series of things to line up, somehow it worked, and we both had such a monumental blast shooting this. She's fun, a lot of fun. She can work the camera like anyone I've ever met, pro model or not. I babbled with nerves and of pent up concentration the whole way through, and somehow it came out as joking around.
And you know what, in the context of this project, I've found it amazing looking back to be able to approach someone almost cold, to suggest a shoot knowing somewhere deep down that it'd work, and yet then to break that ice, to engage with someone and make some magic. And it never, ever fails to amaze me what wonderous things you can learn about someone when you take their picture, and that in the oddest of circumstances, such as being half submerged in a bath, when the photographer and the sitter click, it can show you guys, the viewing world so much.
For that little nugget of gem-like information, and as a reminder as to what you can do when taking people's pictures, I'm forever endedbted to Chelsea. She rocks. :)
(Strobist & off-camera flash info: 580 EX II fired via OC-E3 cord into Orbis ringlight adapter at about 1/4 power, balanced manually with ambient light.)