Photoshoot

Good Ness Gracious

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I contacted a performer Ness Gracious, and asked if she was available for a quick shoot? She said she was so I jumped on to the East London Line up to Rotherhithe station. Ness arrived on time and we walked towards the Thames. The weather wasn't on our side so I had earlier suggested Ness brings an umbrella. Turns out we used it as a prop during the times when it was really windy.

While Ness was posing with the North bank of the Thames behind her I could see that where ever I pointed the camera there was always a crane in view! Still I had to set fire to the stunt umbrella that had taken a bit of a beating by the end of the session.

We moved on to a local park where a children's play area and a band stand were made use of. We dodged a couple of squirrels and a friendly dog too. I had spotted a small cafe close to the edge of the park and thought it was nearly time to call it a day. While kicking a few leaves around I asked Ness to gather some up and throw them in the air while I try to capture them in mid flight.

We had a few goes at it as many of the leaves had their own ideas when it came to gravity and decided to get in front of Ness's face. In the end I managed to stitch a few shots together to make one composition. After which we had a cup of tea in the cafe and called it a day.

I learned from this shoot that asking performers to model can be advantage. There are very used to being in the public view so shooting around town is not a problem and, like with Ness, needed very little directing. Roll on Summer, lets do this again!

Miss Whisky Falls

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Back to Balham!

A while back I shot for Sadie Sinner with Mynxie Monroe at the Bedford pub in Balham. This time I was shooting for Yvette Jenkins and Whisky Falls for BurlesqueNylons.co.uk.

This location had me looking around the area to maximize the diversity of shot we could use. I had Whisky draped over a throne, posing against a fireplace and the pub bar as well as upside down on a couch.

We then strolled outside to the underside of a rail bridge close by. The light at this time of day was incredible, allowed me to take some fantastic sharp shots of Whisky against the brickwork of the bridge. Just around the corner from there was a path way which we also used while the sun was setting.

Mynxie Monroe

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It is not every day that I am asked ‘could you shoot something royal in pub in Balham? There will be a throne and model!’ Hell yeah OK!

I had been contacted by Sadie Sinner, whom I have met at Madam Jo Jo’s, to do a shoot as soon as possible for an event she was hosting later in July.

I asked for a few more details and realized I would need to bring my lights again. This would be my second chance to use my lights in anger as they were last used in Brighton for my shoot with Violet Blaze. They performed well then so I was excited to give them another go.

I arrived early at the Bedford in Balham with time to spare. My contact was the manager of the pub called Scott, who was not in work that day. No matter, I talked to the bar staff and as I could show I was knowledgeable about Scott and the throne I was allowed to go up and check out the area.

The pub hosts music and comedy nights and while I ascended the stairs I could hear some folk music coming from the central auditorium. I wasn’t sure of the exact room I would be shooting in so I wandered around a few rooms. Most were music oriented and some were furnished room with additional bar facilities.

I soon met up with Sadie and we scoped out the room. It was long on one side with windows giving lots of light. We moved a throne from an adjoining room and positioned it across from the windows.

The light wasn’t that great so I broke out the lights only to find there was no power. A quick call downstairs fixed that and we were ready. I had placed my lights to the left and right of the throne. This did off a couple of shadows but the theme was a Gothic/punk/royal/ anarchy shoot so I think they fitted.

Mynxie Monroe, the model arrived and we started the shoot. Sadie knew the kind of look she wanted so she was directing Mynxie instead of myself. This meant I could concentrate of shooting with my Canon 50mm f1.8. I had used this with the Violet Blaze shoot so I wanted to try it again today.

Having the aperture wide open at f.18 meant the depth of field was very narrow. I was trying to focus on Mynxie’s closest eye and as she was sitting still in the throne, the only movement that would spoil the shot would have been mine. Therefore I set the camera to multiple frames to hopefully ensure one will be sharp.

Moving on from the throne there was a great royal couch in the other room. We had Mynxie lounge all over it taking numerous shots. I dragged up one of the lights and placed it close to Mynxie and stood directly behind it. The light whited out her face so I decided to use this shot to try and create a vampire effect after.

Towards the end of the shoot I broke out the Sigma 10-20mm and locked off the camera on my tripod. I directed Mynxie to sit on one side of the couch and I took a shot, I then asked her to move to the other side and another shot was taken. Finally a shot was taken with Mynxie sitting in the leather chair next to the couch. These three shots were blended together later in Photoshop to create a final image.

We packed up the equipment and spent the afternoon looking through the shots on my Nexus 7.

Although it was supposed to be Gothic settingI didn't want any distractions in the shots. There were two pieces of paper on the floor and a mark on the wall. I also removed the end of a light fitting above the throne to clean up the image. I removed a number of scratch marks on the painted walls as well which was ironic as I was soon to put some back.

In Lightroom I have some pre-sets which can make a shot look grungy and… well… horrid. The effect worked on everything including Mynxie! That was not going to work so I threw the shot into Photoshop and added a layer mask to allow Mynxie to show through the grunge.

I then added a couple of textures from the SLR Lounge Texture Pack and added them to the image. The first layer was intended to add scratches around the edge of the image and the second was to add blistered paint to the walls. Layer masks took care of the blistering walls. The other texture had a bright center and a dark outer edge, making this layer as Pass Through reversed this effect, adding scratches to the outside. With both the scratches and blister layers made I was able to use these layers on the other photos, accelerating the editing process.

All the requested shots were delivered in two days and this is the final result with the poster elements added.

Violet Blaze

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Oh lord where do I begin with Violet Blaze? Nutcase... yeah that will do.

I first met Violet Blaze in the Distillers pub in Hammersmith, London. This however was the second time I have seen her perform as I had previously captured her winning performance of Big Mama at Madam Jo Jo's during the Burlesque Idol Final in 2012.

Since then we had had a number of shoots together, all at sunny Brighton in the south of England. OK one was in her bedroom... :-).

In 2015 I also had the pleasure of shooting her wedding to her husband Mike.

Ruth Young

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So a lot of people like rugby then...

'Saturday is rugby day there will be lots of people there.' - Words I wouldn't say i ignored, I just thought a few people playing with odd shaped balls would not hinder me.

WRONG!!! From Clapham Junction to Twickenham I had to let four trains go as they were full of rugby enthusiasts. Had to sit on a small fold down seat once I squeezed onto the next train. My backpack is large and in a packed train it was having a lot of fun getting in people's way. Mostly around the feet and lower back areas.

The first thing I heard once arriving at Twickenham station, was a brass band playing 'Eye of the Tiger' and not one, not two, but three burger bars. I wasn't hungry and I was meeting a friend of mine called Ruth who had agreed to model for me today.

I wanted to put more practice into using my 50mm f1.8 and my Sigma 70-200 and was fed up with just taking shots of the surrounding countryside. Hence having Ruth model for me. We met by the station entrance and walked south towards the Thames. We were soon looking at a very fancy statue in a secluded park, it looked like it was on private land. I wasn't about to boost Ruth over as the one shot I didn't want was one of her impaled on the spiky fence.

We continued on and found a park close to the river. The first thing Ruth spotted was a rope swing and immediately ran to play on it. This was a good start and for the next few minutes we tested out poses and used the surrounding area for backgrounds. Even a robin got involved at one point but flew off as I think he was a bit of a diva.

I had requested the use of a red beret as I thought this would be a great contrast against Ruth's darker hair colour. In the photo above, I had the sun behind Ruth to illuminate the beret and to highlight the shine on her jacket while my pop up flash filled in the shadows from the front.

We continued on, looking to see if it was safe to get closer to the river. There was a patch of earth with a tree on it which sat a little into the river but I wasn't happy with Ruth standing on it so we moved on. It was getting colder by the minute and after a few shots near the pier to Ham I notice that Ruth and myself had started shivering. Thankfully there was a small cafe nearby so we had a cup of tea and I let Ruth view the first set of photos.

We briskly walked to Ruth's abode and tried a few shots in the front garden, As we were about to call it a day a neighbor called Peter opened up a garage he owns close to the front garden and pulled out in a fantastic old Citroen. He noticed us taking photos and suggested we could use it for a few minutes. Well, I was moving before he even finished suggesting it! Peter said he used to use the car for weddings and one year did over 100 weddings with it. Without hesitation Ruth stood by the car and we took a few shots as the light was fading.

I first met Ruth at Madam Jo Jo's while watching and sometime photographing at Cabaret Roulette. She plays a character calledLady Lylith DeHaviland, an Aviatrix Extraordinaire (ish), Host, Singer, Lush and Opiate freak.

Click here for Lady Lylith DeHaviland's Facebook page.

Click here for Cabaret Roulette's Facebook page.