Dark Daze photography blog

Fashion editiorial shoot with Elin (will post the stylist info etc soon)

As you may know I run a Creative Photography/Visual Theory Course at my studio, Garage Studios (course info) and I am trying hard to get all the students on the course out of their comfort zones, myself included. There is a good range of photographers on it, and some very solid knowledge but its always good to break the habits that we all fall into. Sometimes I forget that I don’t need a bunch of strobes to make a shot. Now the students themselves have made great progress, approaching random strangers, putting themselves in the image etc, really thinking quite critically about whats in the frame and why, but I haven’t really challenged myself. Anyways as an exercise a while back we had to all use a disposable camera and break out something new. So I decided (as I do the exercises as well, time permitting) to push myself into an area I wasn’t at all used to. I made a dumbass plan to go to a girls house who I have shot once before in studio, but this time take no lights, team or agenda, just sit with her in the room and shoot whatever made a picture. I set myself rules, no arranging shots, moving objects or give any advise or direction to the girl/model. Its probably my idea of personal hell- especially in someone else house- hell no, make that someone elses Mum’s house -my first rule in life tends to be develop an Exit Strategy, and this allowed for none. Plus I don’t really get the ‘use a camera’ as an ice breaker school of thought… and I like to have control, and if your ankle isn’t at the right angle we will keep going until it is, or until it snaps…. And yet I couldn’t do any of this… way uncomfortable…

The pics were pretty noticeably awkward from that day when I got them back- though Elin was ace and said it wasn’t odd at all to skip a day of college and have me sit on her bedroom floor for a few hours- taking photos of her and her stuff and generally just get in her way.

Whilst we were chatting (not really one of my skills as a human being- especially as we are meant to be social animals) I saw she was a fan of Kate Moss , the many images plastered on her wall gave it away- a girl that Sally and I have constantly debated the merits of….

A few days later I found myself setting up a shoot with Elin that took the early Corinne Day/Moss flat and beach shots as its starting point- via the two editorials Daisy Lowe has done for ID. Not a ground breaking idea I know- but one that may work a new angle for how I shoot, I didnt expect the shots to look that way- buts its a start. Now Corinne and Kate were friends, they were in on it together, obviously I don’t believe that the shots were as spontaneous as they appear but they both knew what they were doing when making some great, but edgy images . So the test here is was to see what we can pull off in a few hours of hanging out at Elins house, and trying not to bug the hell out of her. Plus I had a bit of a time convincing Emma , the stylist, that this could work without being ‘creepy’, she had reservations, and I guess a part of me did as well, the Moss shots have that odd dynamic that would go badly wrong if forced in a day, plus does it make a difference that Day is a female- somehow yes it think it does…. So anyways we put together some outfits (well Emma did) that we could mix in with Elin’s natural wardrobe- and went down to the house with Bryony the MUA.

Everything here is shot with natural light, mostly on 400 film pushed to 800, and maybe a bit of bounce daylight occasionally, but it was a great overcast day- just perfect for what we needed. After I traipsed mud all through her mums house with my Cherry Red DM’s (I had bad socks on…the kind that you don’t wanna floss ya know) we sat in her bedroom for a bit shooting and drinking tea. A few changes later we were outside in the park and trying to boost her onto the crossbar, shooting quickly and easy, it was pretty smooth banging through rolls of film. And I like some of the shots- but it didn’t feel quite right- I needed to frame tighter and shoot on some more diffused light so we headed back.

elin fashion editorial

Elin by the wall DarkDaze

elin

Then back to her house for more tea and stripping off of some of the make-up and lifting the hair off her neck, as everything was too heavy for me up till then. (See yet more issues with control…. Emma and I even argued about socks pulled up or rolled down) I wanted something lighter but also with more of an edge.

elin darkdaze

Somewhere in my head I had an idea of how Richard Kern uses light, and a touch of that mixed in with some O’Bedlam magic. We kept peeling back layers until we were getting somewhere that I wanted and so these are just a few of those shots.

Theres definitely a different dynamic shooting in a models own house, as opposed to ‘my’ studio…

So you can see these images appearing a bit on my blog, flickr and tumblr. The result of 10.30am to 5.30pm of mainly just hanging out at Elins house and listening to the girls describe the various drunken falling over bruises on their bodies, and shooting 7 rolls of film. Most of the exposures were coming out at 1/15th or 1/30ths even at f1.8, with no digital to fall back on.

Now I think we may put all of these together in a decent collection, maybe a limited edition book (one of those self published ones) limited to 15 or so copies. Theres a wealth of great shots here- but maybe we’ll go back and do some more first, cull the best from 3 shoots together maybe….?….. I am not sure yet. If you’d be keen on that then let me know. Oh and if you work with a model agency push this girl into a car and get her to London- I mean have you seen here- she’s amazing.

Posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 9:08 am in General opinionated rants that I will later regret..