Keegan Arrives In Melbourne

Last week I got back into testing in Melbourne, working with some new talent. The face in question was Keegan; a young model who had only recently arrived in the city, having come from northern Australia. As he had only been down here a few days, he hadn’t yet acclimatised, and was feeling the chill! But this didn’t stop his enthusiasm for the shoot.

I had two huge bags of garments from H&M, with a few wild patterns thrown in for good measure. I continue to be amazed at the photogenic nature of some of the more ‘out there’ garments. Things you would question if seen in public, but that look great for shoots (the shirt in the first photo on this post, for example.)

Keegan was really easy to work with, he had a very calm nature and took direction well. He was also really good as posing with hands- which sounds a bit odd to notice- but hands are one of the toughest things to get right, in my opinion. It is easy to make them look awkward or stiff, so this is a real skill.

Luckily I am really nice and had a lot of long sleeve garments and winter gear. It was one of those shoots where the talent didn’t mind being layered up. I was also lucky to find an old dock shed which had been converted into a carpark. It had really interesting light in there- a combination of strong down lights and natural light from the large entrances. There were hardly any cars in there, so we pretty much had free reign of the area.

Thanks Keegan for being a champ, and good luck with your career in Melbourne!

Keegan is signed with GTR Melbourne.

Snazzy Headshots

I get really excited when new clients contact me, especially if they do so because they have seen my work somewhere! Last week I got an email from Tanisha, who is a dancer. She wrote me some really nice words about my photos (making me all gushy and smiley) and asked if I could take some portraits of her to take to castings.

Tanisha was SO lovely to work with. Being my usual daggy self, I pulled all the lame dad jokes and had her laughing about on set in no time. She warmed up realy quickly, and relaxed in front of the camera easily. I love to mix these types of shoots up and work both indoors and outdoors, so after a few outfit changes in studio, we took some outdoor shots too. Thank you Tanisha for coming in to the studio, and good luck with future castings!

PS: yes, I do portraits and headshots. Actors, models, dancers- if you need a folio update get in touch! :)

Haiich Launch Shoot

Yesterday I had an awesome day in the studio, shooting the launch images for up-and coming designer Haiich.

I’d been waiting to do this shoot for quite a while, so I was excited for the day to finally arrive. We had an awesome team on board, including a videographer to capture snippets of the day. Kris, the designer behind Haiich, had pulled together a very talented bunch of people. We had Saphire Gaskas as HMUA, Jo Blankfield styling and pulling wardrobe, Chris Hart doing the behind the scenes video, Anna Maksacheff assisting him and working on some marketing bits and pieces, and the lovely Ashlee from Giant Management as our model.

So as you can imagine, the studio was buzzing with creative talent.

Whilst Saphire got busy with hair and makeup, I set up the lighting for the first part of the shoot- the look book. I usually use a chair to test the light on, but end up having to make a bunch of adjustments once the model comes onto set (because obviously humans are a different shape and height to chairs), but luckily I had an awesome stand-in to test on (thanks Anna!)

However, the client wasn’t really sure what she wanted, so we had to make a few changes once Ashlee was ready, but that was fine, and easy to do. Such a difference moving one light makes!

This was the first shot taken with the new setup. I thought it could have been a hero shot already, and that’s when I knew this shoot was going to yield some wonderful results.

The team worked really quickly, and Ash was incredible at moving and posing; hitting the mark every time. I would not hesitate to say she is one of the most fluid and diverse models I have photographed. We got through the look book images in record time, only needing to shoot each t-shirt for about a minute before having an abundance of useable shots.

So, having shot the 7 different colours of t-shirt, we moved on to the editorial images. For these shots, there would be two different styles of photography, to be used for different purposes. One set would be in colour, and one in black and white. I knew I wanted to light them differently, for tonal contrast reasons, so we started off with the colour images, as this lighting setup was closest to what we had done for the look book. We planned to have Ash moving around a lot in the images, so I made sure the light wasn’t too narrow, so she wouldn’t fall into shadow too much if she stepped a tiny bit off her mark.

Anna helped me with sitting again…

The editorial looks were where the stylist, Jo, really got to play. She had sourced a whole rack full of gorgeous clothes to pair with the t-shirts. The aim of these images was to show the versatility of the shirts, and depict the different ways they could be worn. We had a whole bench full of accessories to play with too, but decided to keep the looks simple, so as not to distract from the shirts.

At one stage, Anna had to make an emergency run to the nearest DFO to get some sneaker-style shoes, which would be paired with some sleek track pants and one of the neutral shirts. The best part was she came back with the shoes, as well as a secondary pair that had cost only ONE DOLLAR! I could not believe it, and was tempted to abandon the shoot and drive down to DFO for the afternoon.

Oh yeah, and then this happened…

So apparently Ashlee is a crazy acrobatics lady, and can do all kinds of tricks and movements that normal humans cannot. She even walked on her hands and balanced on the little stool (above). I was not expecting that at all! And so I’m hoping to do some kind of future shoot to show off this talent!

In any case, the shoot continued to move fluidly, with Ash and I working up a rhythm in our shooting. Everyone was crowded around the laptop excitedly, watching each image pop up on the screen. I have no idea how Kris is going to make her selections- almost every image was gorgeous!!

We all had to have little interviews throughout the day, which had deep and meaningful questions (like, what is your inspiration), as well as random questions like (if you could only choose x or y, which would it be.) When it was my turn, I said a lot of silly things and made a general fool of myself, so I am kind of not looking forward to seeing the video (but at the same time, I really am!)

The last look of the day was some simple black and white images, which focused heavily on emotion and the neutral shirts. Styled with only plain undies, the results were simple but stunning. Also, noodles arrived to feed everyone’s hungry bellies…

I had a great time on this shoot, and cannot wait to retouch some of the shots! I clicked with a lot of people today, and made some great new contacts and friends, so some new collaborations are definitely in the works. I was also given private lessons in how to do a fish face, but I think I still need more practice…

TEAM CREDITS
DESIGNER || Haiich
MODEL || Ashlee @ Giant
STYLIST || Jo Blankfield
HMUA || Saphire Gaskas
VIDEO || Christ Hart
MARKETING ASSISTANT | Anna Maksacheff