Earlier in the year I was very fortunate to go with the lovely Lulu Lockhart to Tuscany. It was my first ever visit to Italy, so it was a pretty special place as a debut.
I know many landscape photographers so know the areas they use in their images. Off we went to a well known chapel in the rolling hills, only to be met with around 10 photographers who had the same idea, well similar idea as they didn’t have a model with them!
I really wasn’t prepared for how green and luscious it all was, and I usually tone down greens in my images. Also we pretty quickly realised that the images would be about the rolling hills, villas and Cypress trees as a backdrop, with the lovely Lulu as a foreground of course :)
This is one with the greens pretty straight, and a nice traditional background.
There was a little wind, so we tried some blowing dress shots. I thought there was a nice leading line and I also toned the greens down a bit as otherwise I thought they distracted.
Whichever way you turned you have superb backgrounds, so it was just a matter of sorting a composition. This image has been compared to the opening scenes of “The Sound Of Music”, without the nudity of course!
We both love this vertical shot, with Lulu mirroring the tower in the hilltop city in the background.
I toned the greens down a little bit in this shot, and I love Lulu’s hair gently blowing in the wind, with the epic background of course.
There were olive groves, and we did quite a few shots there, this is just one of them that I like.
And as it got later in the day the evening sun produced some super light, and we managed some with those beautiful backdrops.
It was quite a tricky place to shoot in, even though we are both pretty experienced at shooting in the vicinity of the public, and we only decided to go at quite short notice so I hadn’t managed my normal level of location searching. Given all that I was very pleased with the images we got, and I think they are a slightly different style to our normal work, where Lulu is normally smaller in the frame and the backdrop is not always as important.
Many thanks to Lulu as always, as this trip was a little trickier than our normal trips and she was a star, but we loved the place so much we’ve already booked to return next year, when I will be better prepared.
2 Comments
Gorgeous shots, Mr Pile. These shot are still Pile-ish in my view, you can’t escape your nature😃 I’m so surprised by the greenness of Tuscan. Never before have I seen photos like this. Would you choose a different time of year next time? Cheers!
Nice to hear from you Mr Pope, and thank you – as always – for your kind words. It was a lovely place but it’s very popular, so you are limited to when you can really shoot there.