Elite Magazine Photoshoot With Nikki Little

Recently I got a message from Fraser Mutch, one of the main men over at Elite magazine, asking about the possibility of shooting some images of model Nikki Little for the June edition.  Nikki is someone who I have been fortunate enough to work with a few times over the last couple of years and I was delighted to get the chance to do so again.  Nikki had entered a competition with the magazine to be their Model of the Month and polled the most votes from the readers.  This was no great suprise to me as she is such an accomplished model with a great look and the portfolio to match.  We got our heads together and came up with a few ideas that we would like to work on and met up at Banana Studio for the photoshoot to try and bring them to life.  We had three hours to get the images we needed for the publication which seems like a long time but in reality with make up and clothing changes the time just flies by.  During the course of the shoot we tried several different lighting patterns to go with the outfit changes to try and give some variety to the images and showcase Nikki’s versatility.  I think we pretty much achieved this goal although we did run out of time on the last idea we had which involved a really athletic pose from Nikki and a lighting set up which i couldn’t get just right, perhaps that is one for next time!!  Having said that there was one real stand out image on the day for me where Nikki nailed the strong, athletic pose and I managed to capture it in just the way I wanted.  It was an absolute pleasure working with Nikki again, such a friendly outgoing model but thoroughly professional with it.  Thanks also to Eric and his staff at Banana and also to Nikki’s Mum who was on hand at all times to help out which was very much appreciated.

 

Tripping The Light Fantastic

Sometimes in life things just seem to fall into place and just work, Tuesday this week was a prime example of this for me.  Siobhan (better known as Bob or Roberto!!) had been trying to organise a shoot with me for some time but as we wanted to do something location based we really wanted the weather to be right so we had several abortive attempts to make it happen.  The weather was so good this week that we just decided to go for it and despite a few spots of rain on the drive up to Tynemouth it turned out to be a gorgeous evening and the light was just fantastic.  Bob is such a creative soul,  she had a range of outfits prepared and a set of inspirational images to work from, so that despite the short notice we were pretty well prepared for what we wanted to achieve.  We did a recce up and down the beach at Tynemouth and planned a few different areas where we wanted to shoot, after that it was pretty full on making the most of the location, light and Roberto’s extensive wardrobe!!  We worked our way along the beach, climbed like mountain goats along the cliffs and used the old outdoor swimming pool that had some great backdrops.  Three hours later we were finished with a real sense of satisfaction of a job well done.  The only let down was  being kept going “please just one more set!!” by the promise of the best fish and chips in the area which were conveniently forgotten when we had finished 😛  To be fair her boyfriend did come to the rescue with a tasty burger which really hit the spot.  Lots of good images still to come from this shoot, please come back to this post as there will be further additions to the gallery.

Take Me To the Beach

Well wasn’t the weather in April fantastic!!  So much so that I felt the urge to get back out and do some work on the beach, weather was glorious though the water temperature was bloody freezing so we kept well clear of that!!  One of the techniques I was looking to perfect last year was the use of the Alien Bee’s Ringflash to provide fill at the times of the day when the sun was high and there were some pretty deep shadows.  The flash has an output of 400W so has plenty of juice and powered by the Vagabond II battery pack it is portable enough to have the pack slung over your shoulder and still keep relatively mobile and enough power to keep the flash charged up throughout the day.  My usual approach is to have the model with the sun behind her and use the flash to fill from the front.  Most of the images were shot at around f8 – f11 with the flash set anywhere between 1/4 and 3/4 power depending on the shooting distance

For the latest shoot I was lucky to have Charlene as the model who was looking to add some different elements to her modelling book.  The weather was lovely, if a little hazy at times, so we headed off to nearby Redcar on the north east coast of England.  Charlene has such a great look and an absolute pleasure to work with.  We spent about three hours just wandering up and down the beach looking for different places to shoot and things to shoot with.  The piece of driftwood we found presented a few challenges and was the cause of much laughter when it kept rolling over!!  We got there in the end though and despite the difficulties I thought Charlene really nailed that shot.  Fingers crossed for more days like that this summer.