Those who know me will know that I have a huge backlog of shoots that I have not really made best use of, or in some cases not even used an image from – my current solution to which is to arrange lots more shoots!!! Having to gets lots of different images accepted into international exhibitions for my EFIAP has led to to look back at some of these ‘old’ shoots. I say ‘old’ because the images from this shoot are less than 18 months old, whereas some people enter exhibitions with images which are over 10 years old, and have gone naturally sepia :)
So after getting Reflected Beauty with Holly accepted into an exhibition I remembered how many great images I had from that day, so here are a selection of them, interspersed with various nuggets of information which you may choose to read or not in the unlikely event that you get bored with the pictures.
As I have told many people I do not see myself as being creative, I have had a technical education and career, and so have to work hard to try to be creative. I quickly found that one of the first things that help with creativity is getting a good model, and they don’t get any better than Holly.
The next step to help creativity is to get a good location. This location is close to Birmingham, not usually known for its green and open spaces, within the motorway ring that encircles much of the West Midlands connurbation. All you have to do is ask the owners whether you can take some pictures on their land, this makes for an interesting conversation, but it is helped nowadays as I have a good portfolio of images to show them the sort of images I take.
It helps if the models fits in with the location you have chosen. Here Holly’s stunning classical beauty goes perfectly with the natural surroundings chosen. My attempt at pre-Raphaelitism (is that a real word?) above was actually a test shot taken while I was checking focus and exposure, but is a favourite image of one of the photographers who I regularly shoot with.
After selecting a good model and location, the next element is knowing what all the dials and buttons on your camera do, and how to use them quickly as the light changes and picture opportunities quickly come and go in natural light situations. My botanical knowledge is very limited, but I am told that the plant in the picture above is Rosebay Willowherb which is a weed, a pretty stunning weed if you ask me! You also soon learn that backgrounds matter, and that dark relatively clean backgrounds such as in the two images above do really improve an image.
Then if you find a setup that works, try variations, so in the images above we have a semi-clad Holly and a fully nude in one from the same series as the Reflected Beauty from the last blog post. I actually prefer the wider shot than the image that got accepted in the exhibition.
And finally the light changes in colour, direction and quality throughout the day, and I learnt a lot on this day as I was fortunate enough to shoot Holly for near enough a whole day so was able to see the changing light in action.
These were some of my first attempts at location photography, and looking back I don’t think I did too bad a job, although that was more down to the choice of model and location than the actions of the photographer. I shot Holly again quite recently in January, and hopefully it won’t be another 18 months before those images see the light of day on this blog.
So one of the morals of this blog entry is if you want to produce great images, whether you are experienced or not is to book Holly for a shoot. She doesn’t bite, you’ll have great fun and produce some super images, and I believe there is an equally wonderful clothed version for those town centre shoots as well :) Thanks Holly.
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Lovely photos – particularly the first and third. You do find such wonderful locations! This is like a setting from a Monet painting!
Now speaking of your image backlog… fancy adding to it some time soon? :-)