ERIN - Experiment | Beauty | Portraits

A few weeks ago I was in Melbourne and got to work with Erin again. This was our third shoot together and easily the most fun. We tried a heap of different ideas and styles that ranged from simple beauty shots to shadow play and nudes.

The advantage of working with a model you have shot before is a lot of ideas flow faster, as you both know how to communicate with each other more effectively. It also means that trust has been built up in previous sessions and therefore nerves can be lesser (but never all together).

So, we have a lot of different images from the shoot. Today I am posting 2 different styles. Above is a beauty portrait. This shot has been retouched to give a smooth perfect look after stepping out of the shower and dried off a bit. The skin needs to be almost flawless, but still believable. More in-line with what you expect from fashion magazines. Stick an expensive necklace onto Erin, and you would have an advert ready image.

The second image is from in the shower. This image has very little work done on it from the actual captured photo. I used what is called a Gobo (Go Between) to create the colour and shadows through the shower door and finally onto Erin. A Gobo is a light that has something in front of it to alter the look (colour, shadows, etc) and then is focused using a lens, so it keeps the detail and doesn't become a mess. In this case the Gobo is a slide with blue and purple colours on it. The light hits the glass door which has some steam and water on it, creating shadows and something for the light to reflect off. Lastly, the rest of the light hits Erin and fills in the rest of the image. For me this was an example of trying something completely new because Erin trusted me enough to experiment.

So this is really just a taste of some of the amazing images we created together. I am looking forward to showcasing more of them in the future.

Lucy & the Lyra - Part 3

The third image in the Lucy & the Lyra series. This one is much more acrobatic than the last 2.

This is a shot of the third costume that Lucy posed in. We don't have very specific information on this one except it's from USA and was manufactured somewhere between 1950 and 1970.

Model: Lucy Sky Diamond
Assistant: Reese Truscott
Location: Circ's'cool

EVA - A Painterly Portrait

Model: Eva Ning Wei

Above is my beautiful friend Eva. This is from June in Perth, Western Australia and playing around in a studio just for laughs.

This photo represents a move in my editing workflow that I am happy with. I am always trying to improve how I retouch and practice constantly to evolve. While this style is not for every job, for my personal work, this is definitely a step in the direction I am happy with.

BTS (Behind the Scenes)

In this image I broke down the steps in a more specific way.

Firstly I moved to different RAW convertor and started using Capture One by Phase One. I am amazed at the quality I can pull out of this software over Adobe Camera RAW.

Secondly I structured my retouch into desecrate sections as you can see on the right.

Working non-destructively in Photoshop and strictly in my new workflow I can move up and down the sections efficiently and fix issues I notice as I work (look at it from bottom to top).

The final result should be full of texture, colour balanced and give a look more of a painting than a straight photo.

Close up of final image. Notice the texture and tones. Click to enlarge.

Lucy & Touch of Class

On Saturday I spent 8 hours with the beautiful Lucy Sky Diamond doing one last shoot before she moves to Canada. We started in the studio and then moved to amazing heritage listed B&B.

The hotel had amazing decor and the building didn't have a level floor anywhere (it made it interesting to say the least).

If you are in Perth, Western Australia next weekend, make sure you see Lucy at the Perth International Burlesque Festival.

Lucy will also performing at the PA Burlesque Festival (Pennsylvania) and the Ottawa Burlesque Festival later in the year.

Lucy is wearing her blue Ombré costume by Corsets by Nasty Ginny in this photo.

BTS (Behind the Scenes)

This shot is actually incredibly simple but does require some knowledge of colour temperature. The main light from the right is a 80'' octabox with grid in another room. No flash was used, only the warm modelling light. As it was dusk, I wanted to mix the ambient light from the window behind Lucy with the key light from the octabox. The strobe would have been too blue and made the overall colour a lot more flat. Keeping it with the modelling light only, gave me a contrast with the ambient being blue and the key light warming Lucy up. The trade off is that I needed to shoot at a high ISO, in this case 1600.

As you can see from the before and after above, there isn't a huge amount of changes done to the image. I removed the smoke detector from the ceiling and some lines from the walls. I tone down the purple and contrast slightly and selectively sharpened Lucy. Lastly I reshaped the ceiling slightly so it's no so tilted. The actual building is completely skewed, but that is the charm of older buildings.

Emily

On Saturday a bunch of us hired a studio in Perth (WA) for a few hours just to have a play. We where all exhausted from working all day at Supanova Pop Culture Expo but everyone became alive again once in the space.

There was no plan, no makeup, no hair styling, no wardrobe, basically we walked in as is, and shot.

The above image is of Emily, one of our models for the night. The image is a mix of continuous and strobe light.

I'll post more images from the night over the next couple of weeks.