Monthly Archives: January 2013

Artemis Fauna – The Huntress

I had heard that Artemis was doing a tour of Scotland and I really did want to work with her however the time of her tour was extremely awkward for me, not her fault obviously, it just happened to clash with a particularly busy period at work, a time when I couldn’t really take time off work and if I did do the shoot I could be called away at any minute. Anyways I booked Artemis and was looking forward to it but really in the back of my mind I was expecting to have to abandon the shoot and pay her for her time (only fair). Fortunately things went smoothly and I picked Artemis up from Chrissie’s flat where she was staying for a few days, it sounds like she and Chrissie got on well together, always a bonus.
Anyways, on the way there, just 5 mins from Chrissie’s flat I came across a very strange site…..orange sheep!, yup…..orange sheep! I was telling the girls this when I got there but I’m not sure they really believed me, so on the way to the location we stopped off to have a look!.

Erm..yes a bit bizarre and the question is why?..but anyway I justified my sanity a bit..lol.

The location I went for was Lairds Loch, mainly because it was close and if I got called to work then I could pack up quickly. Artemis and I managed to drag along Chrissie as a lookout and general crazy person. It was a lovely September day and fairly sunny and it was my first shoot with the new Nikon D800, however it had been seriously raining for a few days before hand and the ground was distinctly soggy underfoot. However we soon got started and grabbed a few images.

The sun was very strong and low enough to use for some flare effect….

And with a few nudes along the way….

Now around the corner of the loch is a panaramic view of the hills of Perthshire, and the foreground is a grassy lane where the logging lorries used to convey tree trunks along…

This one is a snapseed version……check out this editor at Niksoftware..Bargain!

Then with Chrissie being lookout and people watcher…Artemis and I headed deeper into the woods just to the side of the path.

On the way to this wooded area we past a tree that grow out over the loch so we headed back there, however that area is more popular and Chrissie had to be extra vigilant…

By this time I was ready to call the shoot short because of work, we could have gone to another location but I would definitely be ‘chancing it’.
So all in all a great day out, Artemis?….lovely girl, absolutely top notch person and model, definitely on my ‘work with again’ list, highly recommended!
This image here is my favourite from the day and I’ve quoted what I have written on flickr :-

“Although on this shoot we got a lot of art nude and other interesting shots, this is my favourite from this shoot. As photographers we employ models to create images and we display these lovely images of models doing what they do best, sometimes just simple shots, sometimes photoshoped or whatever. If you look around at model shots you see fantastic poses, emotional scenes and whole variety of different ways that photographers and models work together. However seldom do we see simple shots that show the model in her natural relaxed and non posing state. There’s a difference between candid shots and unposed shots, a lot of the time models do not like ‘unscheduled shots’ as it often does not show them as they would want to be shown, therefore it is generally not polite  to take candid shots during a shoot. This image here is a shot of Artemis inbetween poses, and I love it because it shows some of her personalilty, capturing that lovely smile and her quick to laugh personality…it shows she’s relaxed and having fun (probably laughing at me in the middle of the loch wiv me wellies on). Artemis is a very professional and highly experienced model with an excellent portfolio, this standard has come thru hard work and sometimes harsh conditions, and sometimes even harsher unwarrented critisism, this shot shows a fun side.”

The Face of Summer

Earlier in the year Rachelle Summers put out a last minute casting call for a shoot near Leuchars, seemingly an organised shoot had been cancelled and she was going to be kinda stranded at the railway station for several hours. Now Leuchars isn’t a station you want to be stranded at, nice though it may be, it’s small and has limited facilities. Anyhow I tried to get a shoot organised with her for that time..however work was a bit iffy and there was a 50/50 chance of not making it. Fortunately alternative plans were made and she avoided the painful wait in the cold weather at the train station.
In the end though we made plans to have a shoot later in the year, so on a sunny day in September I picked her up from John Hewett’s flat in Burntisland and we made our way to RoRo studios in Tayport.
On the way up we regaled each other with horror stories from various holiday adventures and time passed very quickly, she is chatty, fun and good company. Due to work commitments we only had a couple of hours to do the shoot and they went very fast, in the end we ran out of time for a couple of ideas but it didn’t matter at all as we got some good shots….

 
 
 
This portrait won Best Portrait in Asansol Salon, India.
 

We moved on to try some materials….some sheer and some movement….

 
 
Swooosh, swirl and fling……
 
 
 

As I said before Rachelle is fun and good to work with, petite and very talented. Highly recommended to anyone, she brings a certain energy and zest to the images. Hopefully I will work with her again soon, definitely on my ‘work with again’ list. 🙂
On the way to Dundee to drop Rachelle of at the train station, next destination Aberdeen, we saw some of the most amazing rainbows I’d ever seen. All in all a very good day!