Rose Downtown

July 17, 2015 in Portrait

The weekend of our Samurai Shoot was a busy one for portraits, as Sven & I also caught up with professional Auckland model Rose on Saturday, who we have previously shot in Riverhead Forest. Rose had spent the morning modelling at a beauty show, and surprised us with new red hair!

The aim of this shoot was really just messing around and trying some new things and, as is often the case, for Sven to try out a new Fuji lens! We had thought earlier in the day to aim for something fun and try some 'street fashion' type work, although as always plans change over the course of the day as we find different locations and see what works and what doesn't.

We had a couple of props for Rose to try out, including an umbrella - although we didn't get any rain, a couple of outfits and a bright pink handbag. I feel a bit awkward still trying to make fashion, prop or pose suggestions, relying also on Rose to help decide what would look natural, and hopefully not too forced. It would be great one day to try a larger shoot with a more expert fashion stylist to help provide suggestions!

As the afternoon progressed we found a few different locations to use around downtown, not all of which worked out, but I did particularly like the dark shadows and patches of light in a tall skinny alley off Shortland St. The look definitely shifted in these photos from our original 'fun' idea into something more noire, maybe looking a bit like an 'adult' situation haha. But I do love dark shadows and chiaroscuro, so will keep this alley in mind next time too!

Robbie and Iaido - the art of the Samurai Sword

July 08, 2015 in Portrait

Last sunday was spent back down at Muriwai beach, one of my regular and favourite outdoor locations. But rather than shooting landscapes, nature or people on horses, it was Robbie and his Samurai Sword! Sven and I requested he come out for an afternoon and show us some moves - Sven to test a new Fuji lens (review and pics here) and me, well, for something new and interesting to shoot! Robbie is a keen martial artist and motorbike rider, quite the Kill Bill character.

I've been interested in swordsmanship for a long time, but never a practitioner, so it was really interesting to hear a bit about it, and the art of Iaido/Iaijutsu in particular. I don't know enough to critique Robbie's technique, but he looked very fluid and confident to me, and was a great portrait subject. These are some of my favourite and I think most interesting portrait photographs to date.

Muriwai was a good location yet again, although my favourite shots on top of the sand dunes were very exposed to the strong wind, which resulted in sand going everywhere through our camera gear, hair, clothes and eyes, hence most of Robbie's poses facing to the right and away from the wind! I think the wind made for great shots though, with his Hakama blowing around and sand clouds rolling through.

Thanks again to Robbie for his enthusiastic help on a cold, windy, and very sandy day!

Rose in the Forest

January 07, 2015 in Portrait

Last Sunday was spent again in Riverhead Forest with Sven, friend and regular shooting buddy from Bokeh-Monster, and new acquaintance and excellent Auckland model Rose Halfpenny. I was primarily there to help Sven out with his portrait shoot and review of a new Fuji Lens (review and his pictures here), but managed to sneak in a few shots of my own towards the end once the hard work had been done - holding reflectors and water bottles, scouting around the forest for good shooting spots, and taking some 'behind the scenes' pics for Sven! We chose this location as we had fun here last year exploring around taking some landscape and forest shots, and surprisingly we found our way easily back to the same location again, through some bushes off the entry road, across a stream and up a hill!

Rose is a professional model (and midget speedway driver!) and was very obliging in trying out the different locations and poses we suggested. The theme for the shoot created by Sven was a 'lifestyle' type hiking shoot, similar perhaps to what you would see in advertising for Kathmandu or Macpac (as seen in our props!). We had good fun using the varying light in the forest, looking for interesting spots, sun patches and shadows. I've personally tried to aim for a more 'cinematic' look than the typical clean commercial advertising shots, which is more to my liking and hopefully worked out okay!

Vintage Charlotte

July 10, 2014 in Portrait, Vintage

The other weekend I had a fun shoot with Miss Charlotte Cake, who is a blogger, baker and all around vintage enthusiast. Charlotte wanted to work on her modelling portfolio, with an eye towards entering the Miss Pinup NZ competition next year. I'm still working on my portrait portfolio myself, so it was good to work with someone with plenty of ideas for wardrobe, props and poses. We've previously shot before in more casual settings, and it was nice this time to do something together with purpose and theme!

Our original idea was for a 'vintage picnic' shoot in Auckland Domain, making particular use of the rotunda area - except being winter of course the ground was quite soggy, and the rotunda scaffolded for repairs! This wasn't entirely unexpected however, and we had chosen the spot with alternative options in mind such as the Winter Gardens. The hothouse at the gardens was a nice easy start to the shoot, with interesting and colourful backgrounds, and quite pretty light coming through the old glass. Of course the humidity wasn't great for Charlotte's meticulous hair style! I worked on this in photoshop for a few photos, but definitely something to remember for next time.

After trying a couple of poses and positions, we moved outside to the terraced pond area, and found some interesting concrete and wooden benches to use, with interesting textures in the bricks and vines. I do wonder if I'm pushing the 'brick wall portrait cliche' a bit here, but I think the style and props make it a bit different at least. We also had good fun shooting at high frame rate for some action shots of Charlotte drinking tea and spinning around - as much as tea drinking can be considered 'action', that is. I turned one of these sequences into an animated GIF (in the block above), hopefully it works for everyone viewing this. This was a fun bonus to make from the pictures, although a bit of camera movement during the sequence can make things a bit tricky! A tripod might be recommended next time..

The setting and primarily black and white colours gave quite a 'gothic vintage' feeling - not exactly what we were planning from the start, but we liked where it was going, and these pics in particular I processed to have a darker tone. I think gothic vintage is certainly something I'd like to work on again in future, and to push it further and more stylised. The more flowery and lighter pictures were given a semi-vintage tone and softness - I didn't want to push it too far into the 'cheesy' realm of fake sepia or Kodachrome colours, but hopefully it still complements the theme well.

Charlotte has a nice write up of the shoot on her blog here, and gives a much better commentary on the styling and wardrobe that I could. As for a learning point to take away, I think I need to work on directing models more - Charlotte had good posing ideas, but I should contribute more to this - since of course the model can't see exactly what I'm seeing, so I can be proactive to make small changes and corrections, rather than noticing them when it is too late sitting at my computer! It was good fun to work with Charlotte, and hopefully we will be back again for a picnic shoot once winter and ground repairs have finished..

White Studios pt.1 - Samantha

August 01, 2013

Last Saturday I spent the day shooting at White Studios in Kingsland, with good friends Sven (the Bokeh Monster) and Annupam.

This is Samantha, who was kind enough to pose for me.

Coming soon will be some photos of Priya, who was equally kind to model, both with a range of interesting makeup styles done by Celeste.

Thanks to everyone involved for a fun but tiring day of shooting, evidenced by 2 out of 3 photographers having a nap during the movie that followed our celebratory pizza and beer...

On Editing

I managed to hit my shutter button over 900 times this day, which seemed like a good idea at the time - but then how to narrow it down to only a couple of favourites to publish? And how do I know which ones the models and make up artist will like? I want to give the other participants some results worth their time.

I spent several hours deleting rejects and playing with colours, but made no progress until I decided just to retouch and publish the ones I personally liked best. I don't know exactly what makes a 'good' fashion/beauty/glamour portrait - I know what I like, but maybe that isn't what the others were expecting.

So these are the style I like as a photographer, whether others do or not - of course I hope they do! And I have 500 more shots they can choose from later if they don't like these ones. Or maybe I just won't be invited again next time..

So these few images are my favourites of Samantha, all from a simple natural light setup against the white studio wall. I have photographs of her from several other lighting setups as well, which I shall publish in due course. Some of those show quite different looks, so hopefully we can find some images useful for both her portfolio as well as mine!

So ends my first post on my studio photography, part 1 of perhaps 3 from White Studios. Next up will be photos of Priya, followed by different looks for Samantha, all with equally riveting commentary..

Rose Downtown

Robbie and Iaido - the art of the Samurai Sword

Rose in the Forest

Vintage Charlotte

White Studios pt.1 - Samantha

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