Sometimes it seems like everything is against you. Samii Bliss, who I've worked with quite a lot since starting shooting models, texted me to say that she'd been loaned a fantastic latex outfit from her designer friend, Kinky Kex, and she had to give it back in a few days. Would I like to shoot her in the outfit before it was gone? Kex, or more normally kecks is a north of England slang word meaning trousers, by the way. So of course I said I'd love to. Samii's fun to work with and her partner Ashe always comes along too. We have a laugh and Ashe is really helpful when it comes to adjusting Samii's hair or outfit. That helps me to keep a professional distance.
The shoot was setup for a weekday evening at 8:30pm. Normally we shoot from my "studio" which is actually the stock room at my little company's offices. Today, however, that was clearly not going to work out. I opened the stock room and flicked the light switch. Nothing. So I bravely flicked on my handy dandy flashlight - the flash on my mobile phone - and headed inside to look for a fuse box. I found one way at the back. No dice there, though, so I headed inside the main office to look for a fusebox there and this time I found one with a breaker tripped to "off". Aha said I and flicked it back on before heading back into the stock room. Click.. light! And then immediately darkness again. Bugger. A couple more tries and trips confirmed that the studio was going to remain dark for the rest of the evening.
So this was one of those occasions that having Ashe along was a godsend. He was kind enough to help me lug all my gear - backdrop, lights, reflectors, stands.. everything, into the main office and into the print room. Not as big as the studio but the biggest room available with power. So we pushed some printers out of the way and set everything up. It was an interesting location to work in. The lack of space meant my lights were closer than I would have liked and as a result there are some hot spots I'm not fond of in the final images. A little creativity with a reflector helped later in the shoot. But by the time we'd messed with the power, moved all the gear and finally got shooting time was slipping by and we didn't have all that long. We shot for maybe an hour and a half and then stopped.
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It was a short shoot but a great outfit that inspired some quirky poses from Samii and some off-kilter stylings in my post processing. We wanted to make sure all the outfit parts were on display, especially the company name, which meant dedicating some time to the "booty shot". I had this idea of Samii dangling a hand behind her back just above the latex pants just to give it a little something. In retrospect I now wish I'd asked her to cross her fingers as though she was telling a lie. I think that would have made a fantastic shot with the latex pants and the name. I wanted these shots to be all about attitude and I think we captured some of that despite the very limited time and space we had.
We ended up with 5 finished processed photos out of 196 shot on the night. There are still a few in there that I might go back and work on. Take a look and let me know what you think. And you can count on me re-using that crossed fingers idea in a future shot!
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