I had a shoot booked with Annie for months ahead, it was actually Helen Stephens that recommended her to me. So when I saw that Annie had put out in a casting call for this area I got in touch straight away and for a while it was the only solid booking I had for 2016. Months flew by as they always do, on their silent and stealthy wings. I picked Annie up from the the train station in the morning and we headed out to the studio via the local shop for costa coffee and munchables. I selected a black backdrop this time for a change as I knew it would suit Annie’s red hair. And after the usual cuppa and snack, as you do, we got down getting some images….

Some see thru fleece first…

Another short break involving more snacks…then some casual leather sofa shots…

Then a bit of an elaborate lighting change for some portraits….

Ok some nudes too….

Sadly our time seemed very short but we had a laugh and some fun, with some chin wagging thrown in for good measure. All n all, a lovely morning with a lovely person.

PS…this might be my first ever blog with totally colour images…..shock horror scandal!!!

Bink and I had originally set up a shoot in February but due to ill health we had to reschedule, as it was I managed to rustle up a studio day for her with St Andrews PS and an Art Nude workshop the weekend after, so all in all it worked out better in the end. It had been a wee while since I saw Bink and it was a pleasure to be working with her again. I’m always struck by her free spirit and compassion for the world and people. Anyways back to business, we had a few people in for the shoot on the first day and eventually it came round to my allotted time.

So of we go with some dark light images….a mixture of nude and lace

Veronica had been in earlier and I managed to blag a loan of this red fluffy coat, together with red shoes it made for a striking combination.

I also blagged her leather coat with the red lining….

We moved on to some portraits using clam lighting….with a difference, the bottom light didn’t always flash but it all worked out fine anyway. This first image was really just a test shot but I still think its a cracker as it just shows Bink to be the natural beauty she is.

I added some texture and heavily modified the images for this section section of images.

As usual we ran out of time to do much more, but we met up again the next weekend as Bink was the model for the Studio Art Workshop. Because I was teaching I didn’t get the opportunity to take much in the way of images but I managed a little. The workshop attendees had an easy time of it and Bink is a well experienced model and they got some high quality images.

Bink has always been an impressive model, flawless and fluid in action. With a wealth of experience in front of and behind the camera, she is definitely one to look out for when she next tours Scotland. If you haven’t worked with Bink then you are missing out on something special.

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

Anita De Bauch

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…..

Rachelle Summers

Rachelle Summers

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….

Keira Lavelle

lulu Lockhart

Anita De Bauch

emma willis

Helen Stephens

Amber Bliss

Anita de Bauch

Madame Bink

Artemis Fauna

Ivory Flame

Donna Jackson

Chrissie Red

Helen Stephens

Albi

Rachelle Summers

Keira Lavelle

Anita De Bauch

Anita De Bauch

Chrissie Red and Artemis Fauna

Madame Bink

Keira Lavelle

Madame Bink

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.

It was November by the time Rachelle and I got back to shooting again and not the weather for location shooting, besides I was still in the mood for experimenting with Dark Light (stupid made up name). It was cold and dismal outside when I picked her up from Chrissie’s flat but fortunately the studio was as toasty as could be. So again with the Dark Light, and why? because practise practise practise gives solid results at the end of the day and I like it. Its good to find a working technique but it often needs honed and tweaked to get the best out of it. Therefore I make no apologises for working with this type of lighting again, its about subtle adjustments and getting to know the good and the pitfalls. With just a single light to work with it can get a little bit tricky in places. Anyways…..some images I think.

Working with the red velvet this time was very tricky, it took several attempts to find the right modifier and angle. As usual it wasn’t the model that was the problem but the lighting and colour, not enough light made the red look lifeless and brown, too much light killed the curves and shapes. Fortunately Rachelle had a lot of patience as I tried various combinations, but in the end it was worth taking the time out to get it right.

We tried a some lingerie and kept the same lighting but a different angle, which seemed to work a treat.

But then why keep it the same all the time, change the lights and angles for a different theme.

And then clam lighting just because…..practise practise practise…..

Rachelle Summers

The clam lighting approach to portraits gives a consistent backdrop colour which makes it really easy to add textures to without all the palava of an intricate cut n paste exercise.

Its always a joy to work with Rachelle Summers and we never seem to run out of ideas in the studio, if you get a chance to work with her then I strongly suggest you do.

In all honesty I can’t remember how Keira and I got together for a shoot but I’m very glad we did. I do remember having to pick her up from a bus at the train station as the train station was closed due to massive derailment inside Dundee just next to the station. I also remember booking the studio thinking that September can be cold and iffy weather wise, And of course it was a lovely warm sunny day. After a cuppa tea for me and a cuppa hedgerow clippings infusion for Keira we got down to shooting.

A ‘quick’ change of lighting and more tea…

More light changes and a couple of textures added in post processing..

We then rigged up a velvet curtain, like a stage curtain and used a spotlight.

Then a few portraits using clam lighting…

Keira Lavelle

I have to say Keira was fab in the studio, always willing to experiment and try different things out, friendly and good company too, highly recommend to anyone. I have another shoot with her soon-ish, hopefully the weather will be good and we can head off to the beach this time 🙂

September 2015 rolls up and I managed to get a studio day sorted for the Camera Club featuring Stephanie Dubois, in fact we had to make it a day and a half because there was no room for my own slot on the first day. So I booked the morning after the main day. The first shoots here were mainly test shoots for lighting but they turned out well.

When it was Vron’s time to shoot she turned up, as usual, with a large pile of props and clothes, included this facinator …..

And I have to admit I’d been wanting to take images of Vron’s car for a long time, the little figaro looks amazing, it looks like a timeless classic. So we both went out with Stephanie and got some interesting shots…sadly the figaro didn’t live much longer, it was involved in a crash and came out very badly indeed, fortunately Vron fared better albeit with aches and pains.

The studio day was a big hit and everyone can away with some cracking shots. So the next day I had Stephanie for 4 hours, a  couple of hours in the studio and then outside…in the fresh air.

Stephanie Dubois

Some rope as a pulling prop….and some dark light

Then we went down to Morton Lochs for a spell, it was still nice and warm outside too.

But before we got to shooting anything this little chap appeared…A Dunnock

There’s a log across a pond, its actually very stable but looks a bit dodgy when walking across it

It was a very nice day outside and Stephanie rocked it in and out of the studio. Highly recommended to any photographer, a  very versatile model with a distinctive look.

Hopefully more image to come of Stephanie later in 2016……watch this space!