Well this was my first ever model shoot back in 2011 and was my first experience with working with other people when carrying out photography work. It all started when a fellow photographer Shauna (flair photography) asked if I would like to shoot with her as she knew I hadn’t done any model photography and was something I would like to look at.
I arranged with her to go on a shoot the location was to be the blue lagoon in Chavley. This is a nice picturesque area with as you guessed it a lagoon and when the sun hits it right looks blue in colour. The lagoon is also surrounded by woodland areas giving us a chance to shoot in multiple areas getting different types of shots.
On the day I met Shauna and set off up to Chavley along with another photographer Matthew (Mathew savage photography) which both would talk me through the techniques and camera settings to carry out a model shoot. All I had on the day was my trusty Nikon d200 and my kit lens. However Shauna and Mathew being more experienced photographers had their cameras along with a reflector disk and sb600 which I also borrowed and gave me chance to use on the day.
We started off down at the lagoon taking shots of Shauna in front of the lagoon and also fished out an old retro yellow TV out of the lagoon no doubt some drunken teenagers had left but hey it gave us a prop for the shoot so couldn’t complain much. Armed with just the camera and Shauna’s sister holding the reflector disk we started to shoot using the reflector disk to bounce light onto Shauna’s face.
After this we moved into the woodland areas the woodland is quite thick in places so lighting was a bit more dark so the flash needed to be brought out. We placed the flash on a stand and pointed the flash into the white umbrella to cast soft light onto the subject in this case was Shauna we a started to get nice images with using the flash making it so the background was nice and black but the flash keeping Shauna well lit as seen in the image.
Next we decide to use the flash and reflector disk but with a golden reflector on the disk as you can see from the image we bounced the available sunlight in forest off the gold reflector into Mally’s (Shauna’s sisters and model for this periods) face giving a nice golden glow but also keeping quite a dark eerie image due to the unlit forest background.
Overall the day was a good day I learnt loads as Mathew and Shauna were great helps breaking me into what has become one of my favourite elements of photography. I have continued to shoot with Matthew and Shauna and have a nice working relationship and still go on shoots today with them learning new techniques.