2 Good Friends

Who's that girl?

Damn Desperate Housewives

I was having a practice shoot the other day but my two victims were too engrossed watching the TV series to look at the camera at the same time!
The primary objective was to find an intersting shape that worked with the two models.

My Friend

Taken during the previous "Desperate Housewives" shoot. I wanted to see what would happen if I threw one of the friends out of focus.

Portal Soft Wear

Shot this the other night as she stood in the doorway.
The key light is actually behind her in the lounge, and I used the white door to reflect the light back onto her face.

Draughts

This was taken ages ago on the old fish docks.
It was actually taken in black and white, then scanned and hand coloured.
I added the yellow wall colour to add some depth to the image. I chose red as the colour of the dress because thats what it was originally. (No imagination!) See also In the Frame

Stone faced

This was a large rock outcrop on the edge of Dalby Forest. I wanted to capture the rock texture relative to the soft curves and clothes of the model.

Flexible Friend

I wanted to show something about my friend that described her rather than just a standard portrait shot.
She has always been supple and energetic, so I wanted to capture the essence of her flexibility rather than just her beauty.
We tried a few different positions, but in this shot I like the way that her arms created the triangular frame.

Envy

Ok, so her eyes aren't really that colour - but I can wish!

This was another taken in the bath (read the previous posting). She had her head right back looking up at me whilst sat in the tub.

I used the distortion caused by the wide angle lens to create the tapering away of her body and subsequently moved her boobs South. (She wont appreciate that!)

It makes a pleasant change to get back to photographing women. My kids and I have been invited to lots of children's birthday parties recently!

Seaside Glamour

This was a last minute shot taken just before midnight.

Not sure what inspired us to scramble around preparing the image (other than the many glasses of sangria), but it works quite well.

Shot on my trusty old 18-55mm lens while I stood on the sides of the bath.

How I didn't fall in and kill us both I have no idea!

In the frame

Originally shot in black and white, during post processing I hand coloured the dress, background, and skin tones.

I love the way that the doors framed the girl. An open door hidden on the left provided the soft lighting for her face, whilst the background was lit from an open (and missing) window.

This was taken in one of the old dock buildings on the river Humber.
We started the shoot upstairs, but after disappearing up to my goolies through the rotten floor I decided that the ground floor looked better!

Romeo and Juliet

We were lucky that the one of the major structural components (i.e. the body filler) didnt fall off the rusty wing she was laid on.

I think that the Robert Palmer video inspired this shot. I really liked the way that the dress and the car blended into one.

Shot on transparency and then scanned it has had very little post processing. I did remove the number plate though.

Happiness is...

I captured this image of two friends a little while ago.

It was originally shot on black and white film and then digitally scanned. I added the new background in post processing because the original was simply too cluttered.

The new backdrop was deliberately different to emphasise the contrasting shots with the intention of creating a double take. Hopefully the colours should draw the eye first, before the real subject of the two girls 'sinks in'.

Please let me know if it worked.

Happy Birthday to me...

This was my birthday present. Not the girl as such, but the fact that she had spent five hours getting ready to take me out!
I was only allowed five minutes to turn around from getting back to being out the door - including taking this photo!

Although it wasn't explicitly discussed, not taking this photo wasn't an option. At least not if I really wanted to reach another birthday!

This was taken at 1/60th and F4 while she stood in the doorway hissing at me that the taxi was waiting...

The good, the bad, and ?

That would be me then...

I liked the malevolent smile of the 'bad' model at the back relative to the innocent 'good' one at the front. (Click the image to properly see her expression...)

This was originally black and white shot on Ilford FP4.
I hand coloured the models dresses on two separate layers, then added a sepia tone layer for the remaining background.

The wind was blowing in from the right making the dresses flow around.
The lighting was from a large open window on the right and a reflector on the left.

Dresser

An old barn complete with authentic hay and cat sized rats was used to get this shot.

The model is lit from the single 40w lamp hung from the rafters making the exposure very long. The second model was lit using an off camera flash.

I have added the colour using Photoshop to post process the image. The original negatives for this set have degraded very badly, probably down to me miss processing them. At least the scanned digital images should last!
For some reason people thought that I was the one wearing the stockings visible in the mirror!

Secure

I try to find interesting places to shoot and this was an old water pumping station near the coast.

Taken on Ilford FP4 using my Minolta and scanned.
I have added a mask and a couple of saturation layers to create the glow.

The light was coming in from the window just out of shot on the right, with the concrete floor filling in.
The wind was also blowing in from the window on the right making their hair and costumes blow around.

The old building also had a huge empty underground water tank, but I couldn't persuade them to go down there!

Hit and Run

Taken from the top of my classic Italian sports car (read: rusty junk) this image features one of my rare nudes.

The farmers rape field had a track running down the middle that I used to get my car into the center. I stood on the roof of the car to get this upside down image.

Taken on Kodachrome film and scanned. I applied a motion blur to the reflections and to the ground itself to make it appear that the car is moving.

This field was in the middle of nowhere with a good view in all directions so the model wasn't worried about being seen. However we didn't expect the small squadron of microlights to fly over!

Silhouette

Opportunist shot taken while on holiday in Spain. For once the model wasn't whinging about being cold, but was whinging that the rocks were sharp.

The sun still had a long way to go down, but I wanted to include it in the photo. So after making sure the front of the lens was immaculately clean I managed to get this image.

I had Fujichrome slide film loaded at the time, but still managed to meter it quite well.

Scanned and post processed to increase the colour saturation in the sky.

Day Dreamers

A local barn was made available for this shot of two friends.

Each time I pressed the shutter they had to stop breathing, otherwise their breath could be seen in the cold air. Despite their clothing looking like summer outfits it was actually snowing outside.

The daylight came in from the open loft door on the left, and I used a single tungsten lamp at the back of the loft to separate the dark hair from the background.

Shot on Fujichrome to enhance the contrast levels of the location.