Here’s another shoot with the fabulous Adreena Angela, mostly experimenting with transparent materials & natural light. The organza around the head has the happy bonus of softening the light hitting her face, & her tattoos always give an edge to the photos. The shot of her laughing is one of my favourites, but was unplanned.
Shot at my studio in Shadwell, Central London. Hair & make-up by Adreena.
It’s always fun to shoot with young Miss Buckitt; she’s full of creative ideas & very bendy, which is always a winning combination 
Plus she lives near me in East London so is handy.
The plan for this shoot was to shoot something involving wax, play around with gels ( I keep my place neutrally coloured so as to match what the model brings, but it’s nice to change things round), & to see just how close Charlie’s legs could get to her ears.
This shot involved melting candles directly onto Charlie’s chin (ouch!) It was her idea, I don’t generally go round inflicting pain on my models.
For the gel shots, I lit the room with a pink gel , & used two striplight soft boxes on Charlie, with egg crates over then to control the light spill. The overall effect seems strangely flamingo-like.
This was probably the bendiest of all shots. She doesn’t train or anything, she’s naturally this way.
Attempting to look all sweet & innocent. Almost pulling it off, the lack of clothes probably doesn’t help.
This is a shot from further back so you can get an idea of the lighting set-up.
And finally, this is George, who helps me set up the lights, & saves the model from having to stand there while I fiddle about trying to get the right effect.
I had a request on Model Mayhem from Ember, who wanted to shoot using gels. As it turned out, while she was looking through my portfolio, she recognised the church opposite my flat as her boyfriend lives there & she’d actually seen me shooting in the park. I’d seen flashes going off from that apartment & wondered if there was a studio. Small world.
It was quite a technical challenge balancing the light from the lamp behind, the gelled lights, & the lighting on Ember. This is George, who I use to get the lighting roughly right before bringing the model in.
Once I have the lighting roughly balanced, I’ll bring the model in & fiddle about some more. As Ember has a nicely toned body, I used striplights from the sides to accentuate the muscle tone (doesn’t work so well on George).
I think this type of lighting ideally suits nude, as the underwear breaks up the lines of the body.
Here’s a couple of behind the scenes shots to give you a idea of what I was trying with the lighting.
…and some other lighting options, including gels on Ember
Finally, just for fun I brought the glitterball in to see if I could get two completely different colours, which I managed, but I’m not sure if the results actually make a photo worth looking at!
& one of George to finish as I’m sure you’re bored of all those naked women. Well done to Ember as George can be quite a diva to pose with
Jess is one of the most creative models I’ve worked with, which always makes for a great day’s shooting. It’s hard not to pick up the energy of the people around you, so if a model understands the process and is happy to be patient while you’re fiddling about trying to get a great photo, it really helps.
Things I learned from this shoot :-
1) Paying homage to great photos, then putting your own twist on it, helps you get something different (we used a Kate Moss pic with a spiky helmet)
2) Oiling a model up & spraying water on her makes the skin look great in photos. No I don’t need anyone to do it for me
3) Lens flare can look cool if used right.
Happy New Year! I hope that Santa was kind to you & that your plans for 2013 are going well. I’ve been beavering away over the festive period to start the year with a bang. It’s true enough that your life always starts today, & you don’t have to wait for a new year to make changes, but I do find that the combination of being relatively quiet (in December everyone’s saving up for Christmas, in early January everyone’s fat & poor after too much turkey!) & the year ending, gives me an excellent chance to take stock & look at where I want to be in a year’s time.
Anyway, one of my resolutions is to be more consistent with my blogging, so here’s the first of many. Ashlea was recommended to me by another model I’d shot, so I didn’t know too much about her before she arrived, so her spectacular legs were a very pleasant surprise I enjoy shooting tall girls, & find myself able to do more with them photographically, but it does present a side problem of them being too tall to fit on some of my furniture! Clearly I’m going to need a bigger house.
This is also the first shoot to feature this lovely chest of drawers & wardrobe. Make the most of them, I only have them for a short while!
Here’s a shoot of the fabulously-tattooed Emma J. She keeps getting new ink so it’s always nice to shoot her again as there’s always something new to discover She also brought some fabulous rings from The Great Frog which made me very jealous, but they’re a bit out of my price range.
Model: Miss EmmaJ
Make-up & Hair: Lisa Harris
Accessories: The Great Frog London
Shot at my studio in Shadwell, London
I’m always keen to shoot alternative & fetish models as they bring something different from day to day glamour, Ruby being no exception.
We started off with some natural light shots. As this is what I do most, it’s ideal to have as a warm-up. There’s no setting up of lights & I know exactly where the light works so it’s a great way to get models relaxed before I do anything experimental.
When we moved into the studio, I did something I pretty much always do & forgot to change the camera settings over from natural light, resulting in a very bleached out image. I had a mess around with it in photoshop as I liked Ruby’s expression & ended up with this oil painting, which I really like.
This was what I was aiming for once I’d set my camera up properly! The fairly strong contrast seems to complement the outfit & gives the photo a hint of Marlene Dietrich.
With this shot I was trying to light the shoes to show that they, the bracelet & the tie have matching teeth, but as it turns out, the shots that showed that didn’t show Ruby off as well, so I chose this one & used another pose to showcase the outfit…
…this one.
Model: Ruby True
Make-Up: Tabitha Adams
This shoot at The Hempel Hotel was the first time I met Becky, & we’ve become good friends since. She was a make-up artist before she started modelling, so now she’s coming to the end of her modelling days she does make-up on many of my shoots (not dressed like this). Her positive attitude & general bounciness mean we’re always in for a fun day when Becky’s in the house
As a large part of what I do is making the models relaxed & comfortable, it’s vital to have a make-up artist who I get on with, & who also puts the models at ease (& is also great at make-up!) With Becky having gone through all this for several years, her experience is really helpful to the models. Also, you need a certain amount of energy for a successful shoot so if the model’s a bit on the quiet side, Becky & I vibe off each other, which tends to wake the model up a bit
NB my other make-up artists are also great to get on with, they just haven’t posed like this for me so they don’t get a blog yet
This was my first project. I have a DJ friend Bam Bo Tang, who brought a glitterball, or mirrorball, to an earlier shoot (she wanted to smash it with a sledgehammer in a photo!) Thankfully, the glitter ball survived, & I had a play around with bouncing a light off it onto a body. Bam suggested making a project out of it, & I’ve noted that when looking through photos after a shoot, girls seem to have certain parts they like, & some they dislike about themselves. So, I thought it’d be nice to give people a chance to show off their favourite bits, & putting those two things together gave me Project Glitterboobs.
I like the idea of a project, focussing on one aspect makes me shoot it in a variety of ways, & it’s much easier to light one part of a body than all of it .
That said, finding time to shoot a variety of people for the project means it’s hard to make it work, so I haven’t shot as many as I’d planned to. In theory I could take a few shots during my other shoots, but we tend to use all the time & energy we have shooting whatever we’d planned.
I think ultimately just shining a light off the mirror ball is a bit limiting, I may explore the idea of different patterns across bodies as time allows, but I’m not sure how much more I can do with just one ball. Fnar
All shoots took place at my studio in Shadwell in Central London
I always enjoy shooting latex; it’s shiny, & the people who wear it are usually fun to work with, so I jumped at the chance to shoot the lovely Lady Lucie in her own creations. I’ve seen her wearing them in photos on nights out many times before, always looking fabulously glamazonian, so very much looked forward to replicating that in a studio setting.
What I didn’t realise in advance was that she’d never actually had a studio photoshoot before, & the confidence she pulls off so well when out & about is in large part to being out with friends in a club atmosphere (oh alright, & maybe a lager or two).
Because of this, I foolishly assumed she’d need no help with posing at all (note to photographers: never assume anything), & was quite surprised when she started out quite nervous in front of the camera. She soon relaxed into it though, like a duck to water in fact, & I think we ended up with some lovely shots.
We hadn’t planned to shoot the nudes, she only brought two outfits with her & when I asked if there was anything else she’d like to shoot, she pointed at a nude on the wall (a nude photo. There are no actual nude girls attached to my walls) & said “I want that one”
My back was playing up at the time, & I was finding it difficult to get down on the floor without groaning for the shots. Note to photographers: When lying down on the floor in front of a naked woman, it’s best not to make a “Uuuuuuuunh” noise if at all possible.
It’s great that Lucie’s happy for me to post the nudes, partly because she looks amazing, & partly because far too much fuss is made over nudity, it’s our natural state, & it frustrates me that the likes of Facebook try to make us think it’s somehow wrong to not be fully clothed at all times.
Lady Lucie Links:
Website: http://www.ladylucie.com/
Blog: http://lady-lucie.blogspot.co.uk/
Blog about this shoot: http://lady-lucie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/i-had-pleasure-of-doing-matt-christie.html
Twitter: @LadyLucieLatex
