A little interview we did with Lydia Pendred and Mark Rowley of OXygen model management about what you really need to become a successful model
Yesterday at fashion week London, I met up with fashion designer Nicola Woods and musician Gabby Young (without any other animals) following our 2010 collaboration, it was wonderful to see everyone, “in this together”.
I asked the girls to interview each other, which was great fun, and here for you is the result
And heres what we did last year
New Style magazine, have just published the “wild one story” a fashion photo story, I shot way back in May. A story that pays homage to the 1953 film, “The wild one” starring Marlon Brando.
Here is the first in what i hope will be regular vlogs from me and the gang about the wonderful world of the London fashion photographer.
Heres a quick interview with fashion model Jay Cullen we did a little while back.
I’ve been asked to point some things out about a location on the Thames about an hour from London. It’s the Wreck of a 1920′s wooden ship wreck (Hans Egede). It lies on the Saxon way between Gravesend and Cliffe. Which is of course public land.
However to get there you either have to walk several miles or cross private land. A road exists between Salt Lane and Cliffe fort, for access only to the Brett Aggregates works and the Blue Circle sailing club. Entry to that road is restricted by two heavy, locked gates about a mile from the banks where the Wreck is.
The land the road is on, is owned by Brett and because there is an active machine plant where potentially dangerous earth moving machinery is in operation, entry is restricted it is also there to prevent repeated acts of vandalism at the sailing club, as well as to discourage access to Cliffe fort which a is dangerous building, with no access.
The wreck is of course popular with photographers, as is the bird sanctuary at the end of the lake, as well as the site of the first operation torpedo. All of which are on the Saxon way, which is public.
However In the past photographers have entered, finding the gates open,(as they often are when Brett’s are running heavy jcbs and lorries up the road) only to be locked in at night, this has caused concern. As the site owners are being asked to let Trespassers off there land at 1am.Land which is only kept inaccessible due to health and safety concerns.
I was asked to write this article because of a fashion team, that came down to the gate last week. Fortunately one of the instructors was kind enough to let them in, and help them avoid any problems. (if your planning a shoot please do you’re homework)
If you wish to access the sailing club by car. I can only advise you contact Brett head office,
Sailing club members are only permitted to allow guests onto the site, which must be signed in. They are not in a position to open the gates for random film crews, or invite them onto site.
Of course if you choose to walk from Gravesend or Cliffe there are no issues, what so ever, the wreck lies on common land any accident would only be the photographers liability.
Seriously guys, turning up to a location with a full crew without doing a reccy or your research is just unprofessional, and creates problems for other people.
Here is a little tutorial i did on how to achieve that classic technicolor look.
A little chat with Jonas about his world as a fashion and celebrity make up artist.
A few weeks ago Jonas and I made a few little films about some of the designers at London fashion week. Here is the first a short chat with Mens shoes designer Sebastian Tarack.
This is a short clip, Jonas and I did over fashion week. Jonas is interviewing model of the moment Jed texas on what its like to suddenly find yourself thrown into the world of fashion.Im not sure who the photograph is by.
Something I’ve been aching to write about is shooting at night, though I wouldn’t say I’ve perfected it yet. (Access to larger generators and flash packs may help with this). It’s something I see an awful lot of potential in. From images of Winston Link, (who I will cover later on) to Ansel Adams, to some of Helmut Newton’s most famous work.
Day for Night
In the classic days of Hollywood , it was not desirable to shoot at night, for two key reasons: the sensitivity of the film stocks available was poor, and the sheer quantity of light needed would have been expensive, and secondly it would have been expensive to drag the crew out in overtime. So they used, with varying degrees of success, ‘day for night’.
Day for night commonly involves lighting the actors or subject approximately 3-6 stops higher than the sky – exposing the image for the lighter actors and thus darkening the sky, to a night effect, You often see this in war films and Westerns. It has been used very effectively by photographers over the years to produce dramatic skies and portraits, and armed with our secret weapon the flash gun we can freeze movement into the bargain.
So this brings us to
Night for Day
During the day we have no choice but to work with the light, sometime an autumn sun or winter sunrise can be the making of a picture. However in England as often as not we live under a layer of cloud fill, diffusing the colors with no real key or sun. making us all look a bit grey. At night our location becomes almost as if it were a set, the darkness gives us control.
People naturally assume that an image shot at night is going to be dark. Not so. If the scene is a still, a camera can be left open so long the earth moves, (not in areas of strong light pollution). The exemption to this is the night sky, but at night the sky retains it color from a hazy sodium orange in town, to a deep navy blue in the country.
So shooting fashion at night?
When shooting fashion at night we have a wonderful opportunity to delve into nightlife in the city, or to create an otherworld in the country. Where would you like to escape to? I’m going to discuss lighting used in this image by Winston Link. It’s not a fashion image, but demonstrates a true master’s use of light. Particularly as he often used magnesium flash bulbs that only fired once.
In this image he has three different types of light, flash, incandescent and even projection, with a variety of different exposures that required matching to within around 2 stops in order to get a strong negative. The film screen represents the key focus of the image in terms of lighting and exposure. It is both a low light source and is moving, to add to this it cannot be lit as light bouncing off the screen would dilute the image on the screen.
From this he must determine his exposure. We know that film is projected at 25 fps with an exposure of approximately a 60th of a second; at a guess we would have been using maybe 800 asa film and was working on a large format camera. Many films available even then, did not yield strong grain even at 800 asa, with the added advantage of large format helping to keep noise to a minimum.
So the ambient exposure is approx. 1/60 sec at 800 asa. I would happily speculate that even 1/125 would have been possible at 800 asa – though I’m not sure if the old flash guns would sync at that speed.
One key thing to remember is that although ambient light will require a time exposure, a flash gun at minimum power will discharge in 16,000 of a second, making it possible to freeze movement in an image, ergo the train can be frozen even at speeds at 1/60 of a second. In this way we can control the flash exposure with the iris alone.
Link appears to have placed several B.F.L’s to camera left in a 3/4 back keylight situation facing the train, but only lighting the back of the projector screen – note the somewhat unnatural shadow and highlight on the central car. I can only speculate as to the aperture, but judging from the fact we have a depth of field of 60-100ft, I’d judge the iris to be pretty very small even on such a wide lens.
Apply this to a fashion shoot at night
Simply consider the the ambient light at night in your scenario, and decide your time exposure. The chances are if, you are want to maintain some atmosphere you will need up to a one second exposure. If this is the case keep your person in as dark a spot as you can. A nice tip here is to use incandescent light to light your atmosphere, the lights don’t need to be bright, but they can allow you to paint your surroundings in a little.
Now when you have your environment, put your model in with flashlight and set your aperture to suit how you want to expose them. Provided they are kept dark they will not ghost during the time exposure.
Its worth noting that if you choose the leave the camera open, could be hours if you so require, you may flash your subject as many times as you like, each time creating a new exposure.
This is called Painting with light. We can discuss that another time.
The day for night image came from an awesome blog on grading and compositing, by the univerisity of Sydney
http://ifsstech.wordpress.com/category/colour-grading/