In February this year there was a chance to shoot with Anita De Bauch but it wasn’t working out as there were issues at work at the time and it was too risky financially to book Anita. However as it turned out the issues disappeared and Anita had a cancellation that just happened to fit in at short notice….happy days!

So we organized for a very short shoot of 2 hours as this was all we could fit in before her next booking. Anyways…after the usual cuppa tea we got down to getting some images, because of the short notice we ad libbed it all and kept it simple.

 

 

 

Then….the chair!!….gotta be done really…..

 

 

 

And a change of lighting…….

 

 

Then some vintage style lingerie for some classic pin up images

 

Considering the time limitation I think we got a lot done and some quality images to boot.

Anita is lovely and very well experienced, delivering classic looks and versatile poses, Highly recommended and hopefully I can work with her again at some point in the future. Hopefully I’ll be more organized next time and actually have some ideas……though sometimes winging it has its advantages, more spontaneous and inventive.

 

Hurrah another shoot with the ever lovely Rachelle Summers, another studio shoot as the weather was a bit pants…..again. So I had a couple of ideas in mind for this one, something different for me and a bit of a gamble….I wasn’t totally convinced these ideas would work. However I was more than happy with the results

Firstly Angels wings of the gossamer sort……….well not quite but it works all the same.

Gently Gently…..

 

 

Then time to let rip!!!….

 

 

Then we moved to another idea on a story based theme called A Spanish Tragedy.

A slideshow with music that you can find here

A Spanish Tragedy

These are some images from the series….dark and moody..

 

 

 

Then another idea…..called a Dark Presence, a symbolic piece of imagery relating to and pointing to a dark emotional attachment that can be unhealthy but at the same time comforting in some situations. It is a shadow, separate but still there at all times

 

 

 

Angels and Demons within us…and how they play snakes and ladders with our life, using our minds as dice, they shake the dice and roll a number……

Many thanks to Rachelle Summers who is always a stunning model and a down right lovely person.

There were a lot of technical difficulties in this shoot and it took a while to get to grips with this, fortunately Rachelle has a lot of patience and we got there in the end.

 

It was January and the snow was on the ground when I picked Donna up for a studio shoot, so we were both glad the studio was cozy at this time of year. I think we had tried to get together a couple of times over the Christmas period but it was very hectic for both of us. It was good to catch up on all the news and antics over the festive season. So anyway after much chin wagging we got there and Donna had this idea with the black leggings so we gave it a bash and got a cracking set of interesting images.

 

After a cuppa and some chocolate…as you do…we bashed on with some dark light.

 

 

And then some inappropriate use of a table…..

 

All too soon it was time to leave but we did have fun and a good ole chat about life, the universe and the outrageous bribery usage of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. We have another shoot coming up soon-ish, one which involves a story, so I’m really looking forward to that.

I have to admit I’m very impressed with Donna’s modelling, she takes direction easily and understands what’s needed, very easy going and bags of fun to work with. She also has a very wicked smile which sneaks out on occasion and adds a certain spice to the images.

So what is Fine Art Nude? well according to wikipedia it is :- Fine art nude photography is a genre of fine-art photography which depicts the nude human body with an emphasis on form, composition, emotional content, and other aesthetic qualities.

I’m not totally struck by this description, especially emotional content, however to me Fine Art Nude does concentrate on form, composition, shape and lighting. This often includes part of the body only, highlighting the shapes and lighting. Nor have I been a big fan of just body parts as such, as I get the feeling some photographers just wish to show genitalia for the sake of it. And this kind of ‘look at these boobs’ photography is far from what I’m trying to achieve when I photograph a nude. However I do like bodyscapes and the subtle lines that the body can produce with the right kind of light, so I delved into my archives to see what I could produce in the way of ‘Fine Art Nude’. Here is a small collection….

 

 

 

 

 

 

I may revisit this theme at a later date, in the meantime more of my usual stuff in my next blog 🙂

 

 

A mail from Purple Port arrived one morning with a note of a casting call from Emily Hamilton aka Jezebelle. She had managed to get hold of a hotel somewhere in Dundee to shoot in, now I was up for a challenge as I had never shot in a hotel before but I was also interested in the hotel. It was situated on the outskirts of Dundee, somewhere bizarre for a Hotel, it was quite out of the way from anywhere. However I booked a couple of hours with Emily at the hotel thinking that I’ll try my hand at a different kind of location too. And a week before the shoot I thought I’d better dig out my speedlite flashgun, in went fresh batteries and bang went the flashgun in a puff of smoke. £175 literally gone up in smoke. However I had heard my friend Kirsty had bought some really good high speed flashguns and she highly recommended them. So I sent of for one and some triggers for off camera work. They were Yongnuo flashguns and for a fraction of the price of nikon speedlites, a good result!

Anyway back to the shoot……I duly turned up at the hotel to meet the lovely Emily, we had a natter and a look round the rooms we could use, what a very nice hotel, fab for a shoot too. Up went the flashgun on a tripod, trigger on camera and away we went. I was pleasantly surprised at how the flash was working out. It wasn’t all plain sailing as every area in the hotel needed a different light set up. I actually used the camera flash for some shots too. And some shots needed a high ISO as flash couldn’t be used effectively, all in all though it worked out well.

 

I just like the flare in this one….

 

In a different room with no flash, just window light and lamp light.

 

 

The natural light was starting to fade by this time as it was late afternoon in November..

 

 

By this time the room were getting quite dark and time was running out, so we called it quits slightly early but I was sure we had some cracking shots so I was happy enough.

Emily was a gem, took direction well and did everything with grace and style. Highly recommended, nice person and good company, she was very patient when I needed to get the light right at each scene change in the room. Very much a team player and enthusiastic.

Hotel shooting is a challenge too…it has its plus and minus points and I would certainly do it again….its one of those things that takes practise to get right.