Photoshoot - Day 3 Summary

Another morning out in the desert. The weather was suffering multiple personality disorder; Heavy fog for half an hour, then clouds covering the whole sky from the horizon up. The said clouds had little patches of blue in them and differed in thickness, which meant that the light exposures were bouncing up and down by the second.
To add to the trickiness factor - I was shooting in a northerly direction (sidelight on the models - heavy shadow when the sun popped out sporadically) so as to get a mountain as the backdrop. Models wore white tops, have black skin - an exposure nightmare considering all the aforementioned factors, and include that my brief was for a natural light shoot only. So, without the option of fill-flash... tough going!

The evening shoot was meant to be the crowning jewel of the three days. Fog as thick and dark as storm clouds as we arrived. I cursed. Dark, flat light meant slow shooting or pushing up the iso. Both could potentially mean high noise factors in the dark areas (the models skin). I opted out of the high iso and shot what I could at the fastest possible shutter speeds I could get without compromising my depth of field to much. Once again, a fill-flash would have made things easier, but was not to be. A strong, icy wind whipped over the dunes and Judith and Ester were amazing - although they were getting very cold, they did not complain once and were extremely patient with the designers and I when we pushed for 'just one more' in each outfit/setup. As you may suspect, that 'one more' always became another ten minutes before they could be covered by a blanket. I really felt sorry for both of them, but was so concerned about getting a decent shot that I pushed them as hard as I could. We bled the little bit of light that we had right to the end, and then all collapsed onto the ground in elation that we had done as much as we could for the past three days to try and get the best possible shots we were capable of as a group.
The shoot was over, and there was nothing else we could do...

D-Day

I just spent two-and-a-half hours doing a meet and greet with Henriette, Beatrice and the two models who will be wearing their collections. Meeting everyone and speaking face-to-face has calmed my nerves. Judging by the way we all communicated with each other, the running of the shoots should be okay. I'm sure there will be some niggles to iron out as we each get used to the others' style of working, but I'm certainly feeling much more confident that there should be no problem with the basic running of things.

The collection's of each designer are very different as are their ideas of the final look they would like to present. This will make it easier for me, as the photographer, to switch between collections on the fly. Both collections look good and I'm sure will be very impactful when worn by either of the very lovely models.

We start with a beach shoot tomorrow morning. Up at 04h00; meet at 05h00. Sunrise is at 06h31. The weather looks like it may actually play in our favor after more than a week of being terrible. I have my usual gear and have managed, thanks to a good friend, to borrow a Nikon D80, reflector, 85mm prime lens, and 17-135 zoom lens. Having a good variety of gear certainly goes a long way to calming my nerves too.

I'm going to try and run (inadvertently) the shoot like a film shoot. There will be little scenarios to play out using slow movements and strong energy. The scenarios will be discussed in detail before being played out, and very little intervention (hopefully) will happen while they happen and as I photograph them. Not quite what models are familiar with, but with some techniques I learnt from dancing butoh, I think we could get some interesting results if they manage to get into it.

And so, my nerves are all directed to where they should be - taking photographs. I would like to have as much concentration there as possible with as little distraction from other elements as possible. Sounds naive, I know, but that is where I would like to ideally be.

Will keep you updated about how it goes...