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.
Here are some shots from a fashion photography test with Bryony from Oxygen Models. I’d arranged a stylist & make-up artist, then unfortunately the first model of the day was ill. Happily, Bryony stepped in & did a fantastic job. I think everyone appreciates how important a make-up artist is for a good shoot, but a stylist makes a shoot stand out from the rest. The good ones just see things that the rest of us might miss & give the photos something extra. Jakki was fabulous & I hope I get to work with her again.
Styling: Jakki Degg
Make-up: Tamash Sharkan
I always like to find time for some testing each month; my paid work doesn’t allow me to try out new ideas too much, & I feel the need to keep creative.
These shots are from a fashion test with Chloe T from Oxygen, shot at my place in Central London. Shooting fashion is quite different for me as I’ve spent most of my photography life exploring the interplay of light on skin, & lighting clothes is a very different discipline.
It’s really important when fashion tests to have decent clothes, & I was lucky enough to get Jakki Degg to come & style the shoot. She’s really creative & has a fantastic collection of outfits, I’d highly recommend her to anyone looking for a stylist.
Make-up by Tamash Sharkan
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!
I’m always interested in shooting edgy girls, & Scarlet was a great example of that. She has a great ability to convey a mood by looking away from the camera, & then when she does bring her eyes back to you, it’s really fierce.
My favourite of these are the ones in the lift. I had to use black & white, as the colours in the space around the lift are pretty bad (blue carpet, yellow walls!) but I think it helps with the mood of the shots, which is also why I’ve added some grain.
In all these shots bar the one in the window, Scarlet is lit with a 6 foot soft box. I’m using it more & more as it gives a really great light if you get it close enough (you can actually see it reflected in the mirror in one shot, it’s that close!)
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
My day to day shoots tend to involve planning & posing, so I thought it’d be cool to set up some shoots where the model could just play around with a theme & I’d take more freestyle photos. Often in a shoot the best photos can be unplanned & spontaneous, so I was trying to bring that to a whole shoot.
I used natural light for all but one of the shots as I wanted Claire to have plenty of freedom to move around (like a cat) & I find the light is good over a wider area with natural light than with studio lights.
Claire was great, she really got into character as a cat, but still managed to model as well, so I’m really happy with the results.
Venue: East London
Model: Claire Leatherbarrow
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
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
