A Change in the wind

I have had been asked to shoot a fashion line for two young designers in Cheltenham. They organised the location in Croome Court, the home of the Earls of Coventry. The house and Gardens are beautiful with a lot of spec for extravagantly posed images. I took the opportunity so I could experiment with this new more relaxed style. Looking at Hania's indoor location work gave me inspiration for using natural window light instead of staged lighting as I felt that would add to the contrived look I was trying to avoid. I do feel that you can achieve beautiful natural shots through using studio lighting but as I am trying not to worry about staging so much I decided this would be the easiest way to loose control. 

Kerry Dean 

I started looking into Kerry Deans work this year after Grant Scott (my lecturer) had showed me her images. She is brilliant at capturing relaxed models and not worrying so much about the perfect compositions in fact those imperfections are what makes the images different. Each image has a story and an atmosphere. All quite odd, yet intriguing. The lighting isn't advanced but actually natural or she uses flash. This is what I would like to try. 

The clothing was really interesting and dynamic. I felt it would be easy to fall back into the overly posed soots I control to much. I decided to take two different versions of the shoot. How I would normally approach the subject and Something a bit more experimental. This would mean I would have the choice if the shoot doesn't work out with this different way of photographing.

The Stylist and designer on the shoot was Mag Cz a model I had worked with previously. The other designer/ Model was Cherry Kcy they both had very interesting looks that complimented the styling and worked well with the clothes. Both models where very natural infront of the camera allowing me to not direct as much as I normally do so I could step back and capture moments.

(Image to the right is behind the scenes of the first room in the mannor house that I found worked incredibly well with the look of the shoot we wanted to create.)

These are two examples from my raw shots. The first part of the shoot was more like 'My normal style' The next half I relaxed and so did the model. I went through and edited the hole of the shoot as I had teken over 800 images and I discovered how much I preferred this new style of shooting. I even took it a step forward and starting shooting as if there was a story behind the images like Gregory Crewdsons shots.

No Entry

These are two of my favourite images as I feel they have a story behind them. I called them No Entry because in the second image by the door that is what the sign says. I have treated the room as if something strange happens there. Something people fear as if it's an asylum or a safe house.    

Other images from the indoor shoot that i felt worked well with this new style.

The Royal Room

The royal room needed some accessories to match the atmosphere of the grand location. Thick gold necklace and dramatic earrings added to the styling and matched the room. One of my critiques from second year was that on a shoot I didn't match the styling with my location (snow ballet shoot) So this time I made sure the people fit in the surroundings they are placed in. 

We moved to the summer house where they had massive windows. As soon as I saw this location it reminded me of the Lara Jade shoot she did during a creative live session.

She spoke about using high ISO and bleaching the background light through the window out to get an authorial and light shot.  I was really pleased with the outcome of this part of the shoot. Below are some rew examples of my results. 

The White Light