Monday, February 13, 2012

A little Miracle

Alec @ Flag models
Styling, mua: Sil Goovaerts @ change-s.com
Hairstylist: Liesbeth Bruffaerts @ Be Well


Putting together a good team, thinking about good starting ideas and getting all the noses pointing in the same direction it's the essential preparation that goes into a shoot.
The results should serve a purpose or at least convey an idea, for me as a photographer i find it very important that parts of the model shine through, things like soul, inner beauty, strong features,...

Good results are always the fruit of a good cooperation with a good team, but that's where it almost went wrong because the planned make-up artist did not make it to the studio and we had absolutely no information about where she was, was she underway, home, elsewhere, abducted by aliens maybe, ... ?

Gladly Liesbeth knew a mua (Sil) and she was not only available but also willing to join us on a last minute base, that's what I call a miracle because I was so eager to begin shooting with Alec and I absolutely did not want to do the shoot without a make-up artist!

Even with a pretty natural / nude look a mua must not be underestimated, it does make a big difference, and the natural soft look is one of the most difficult to do.

For this first 2 pictures Alec asked me to to something with a piece of fabric, i thought it would be nice to put it over both our heads, this meant that the camera was also under it and the pictures have somewhat of a cosy feel to them :-)

From camera view, a strip-light on the left, one from over the model (to light the hair) and one on the right at 1 stop less power, the structure of the fabric shines through a bit, but next time i'll be using a smaller light source to accentuate this even more.






After this we did a few more classic "fashion" style pictures for Alec's portfolio.

From camera view, white seamless paper on the ground and in the back, strip-light on the left behind Alec (soft rimlight) and Gridded Octabank on the front right.





And a portrait I really loved with the same light setup, I really love the addition of the grids on the soft-boxes!!!



And to finish with something more raw, the last images from a photoshoot are usually the best, model and photographer get to "feel" each other better and this results in more personality in the shots :-)

For a future assignment i had to seek some post-process that results in a Shiny and more metallic looking skin, i will fiddle some more with the setting but it's going in the good direction :-)