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.

Retouching For Stafford Ellinson

For the last few years I have been lucky enough to work on the campaign shoots for Stafford Ellinson and Anthony Squires (as first assistant), but this year I was also given the responsibility of retouching the campaign images. This seems pretty straightforward, but retouching suits is a painstaking activity that requires a lot of time and patience. I had to do a lot of fabric work, which can be tricky when there is pattern involved. Each image had at least 5 hours of work, some had double that.

The client wanted the images to have a slightly surreal feel, kind of Mad-Men inspired. So I went heavy on the retouch to give the model an almost unreal appearance. I’m happy with how the image came out, and so was the client. They went to print too, so everyone on the team was given a copy of the catalogue, which I thought was very nice.

 

Here they are looking sharp on the website! How exciting!

Working with the Stafford team is always fantastic, and I genuinely enjoy the shoot day and coming together to create great images. I’m looking forward to working with the brand again in 2016!

Photographer: Saville Coble @ Blue Tree Studios