I started blogging in 2010 when it was a fashionable way of sharing your images, and many of the models I worked with as well as fellow photographers used this as the primary way of showing their most recent work. Then over the years social media and portfolio websites came to the fore and many of them dropped away, and now very few of my fellow creatives post regularly to their blogs.
There are many reasons why I blog, it’s therapeutic to me and gives me a bit of motivation to ensure I regularly edit images, I can ramble on and for some reason people will read it as well as look as the pretty pictures, and I can post more images than I would want to display in my website galleries and tell the story behind the images.
I enjoy looking at other people’s images and reading their posts, it gives me ideas and inspiration, plus I get genuine pleasure from seeing the unique images that a creative pairing has produced. So I was extremely pleased to see that one of the best models I have had the pleasure of working with, the amazing Ivory Flame, has a new brand new website and has starting posting regular blog entries again.
She has produced an excellent website, and indeed I’ve already nicked a few ideas and tweaked my website a bit after looking at hers, as well as got ideas for images on future shoots – taking inspiration rather thank just copying the images of course! My website was done quite quickly as I just wanted to get something out there, so I’m still playing around with it. I suspect that Holly spent rather more time getting hers just right, which is what you would expect from her if you have ever worked with her, and it was most definitely worth the effort.
I was surprised and quite honoured that she asked to use some of the images she had created with me on her website. Models are sometimes quite small in the frame in my images, and the environment is just as important as the model, while many models prefer to use images which show them quite large in the frame and show off their best attributes. Looking through the images she used it reminded me that although she has rather distinctive hair, she is one of the most versatile models I have ever worked with. It was also a nice trip down memory lane, as I produced some of my favourite images with her. So here’s some of the images she used.
This an example of where she’s not very large in the frame, but she pulls off the perfect pose.
I don’t think I’ve ever posted this image before, she remind me of a lioness on the rock for some reason. It took me quite some time to get around to editing it as getting some detail in the sky was quite tricky.
I’ve also never posted this image before, it was extremely low light and was that rather eerie green colour, making her just glow.
When I give my talk to camera clubs, this is usually many one of the favourite images of many people in the audience. I selected her body and tweaked the hue on an adjustment layer to make her blend into the rocks.
This is an example of teamwork in action, we walked into the room and saw this shaft of light. I quickly got my camera ready and she came up with the perfect pose. Seconds later it was gone forever.
I bought this garment with her in mind, and then found this ideal location. The red of the door and green of the peeling paint goes so well with the green of the garment and her flaming red hair, and we were lucky to have super light as well.
This image was not my idea, but hers. I am lucky in that models feel free to suggest shots to me, and they always seem to work. The way Holly interacts with this elephant sculpture brings it alive to me.
An accident of setting the wrong white balance while trying to change focus point gave these lovely colours, which I decided to keep with the final image.
I wanted to get the whole windmill in, but if she was nude she would be quite insignificant, so we used her red dress which draws the eye to her, and she used this image in one of her recent blog posts.
And rather ironically one of my favourite and most successful images of her is a clothed image. We took shelter here as it was raining, I arranged the chairs, the chairs were falling apart, and she made this exquisite pose, making an image that to me is from another time. If you ever visit me at home it’s the first thing you’ll see, as there’s an A2 print of it in the hallway.
As well as the images Holly used on her website, here’s some images of her that I have edited more recently. When you work with Holly you get so many great images they can keep you editing for years to come, the third image was actually taken in 2012!
I shied away from editing the first image for some time because of the awkward angle of the head even though I really liked the image, but when I finally edited it and posted it somewhere somebody commented that Picasso had a series of images with heads at that angle, so I am in good company :)
Taken in a cottage in Scotland where I was doing a tour with my talk to camera clubs.
And probably many more still to edit from this shoot from quite a few years ago.
Thank you for using our images Holly, and for all the great shoots we had. I suggest you bookmark Holly’s website and pay regular visits to it, as long as you still come here as well of course ;) And lets hope this encourages more people to start blogging again :)
2 Comments
hello Tim,
Thank you for the blog and the enjoyable talk at Ribblehead a few weeks ago. The blog has restarted my creative thoughts again by showing me what can be done using levels to give an image an extra something without changing it into a digital graphic art which seems to be the norm these days at the PAGB and salons! like you say saying an image can get your mind going to something creative without copying a particular image per se. Regards Steven
Thanks Steven. I’m glad that my blog post has been some help to your creativity, some people choose to create their images on a computer, I choose to create mine in reality, both styles are equally valid but my method works for me.