mariana
Mariana came right at the time where I feel I had somewhat perfected the natural light my studio at the time. It was one an industrial estate in Walthamsow, not very glam and definitely not the ideal place to ask young women to come to alone. But the brave ones made it.
I remember this as the blue shoot. Mostly because I kept picking up blue props. I was exploring ways of giving the models something to do other than just sit there and look pretty. So for this one I found myself a nice bright bottle of blue drink, both in a glass bottle and a squeeze-able version. I paired it with a very simple but striking blue t-shirt from COS which almost perfectly matched the tones of the liquid. Her eyes weren’t quite the same colour, but blue-green enough to work in this very aquatic palette.
Even just the act of having her firmly hold the glass bottle made the images so much more engaging, I do remember being struck by how simple it can be to add drama to a simple portrait. Of course, the hair being blown by the fan also helps add something. Looking at it now, I wish I had given her some lip gloss and blue nail polish to complete the look.
When she got to squeezing, I only had two chances. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube as they say. First shot was good, but the second better. Mariana did an amazing job of keeping eye contact and ignoring the splashing liquid around her. I also shot a high speed burst of this to give myself more options, but when I looked back at the images, I realised how well they worked as a GIF.
I think I had just made my first fashion film.
We moved onto the white colorama with the classic bra, simple trousers and heels look. She worked it well, her body suits it. We also put a bit of water through the hair to add something to It. It’s hard to believe that this is totally natural light, all coming through a small window behind the camera. I had finally found the settings that made the studio look more impressive than it was. The thing that lets it down being that the window was high on the wall and didn’t go all the way to the floor. So you can see how her feet aren’t anywhere near as nicely lit as her torso. Still not bad though.
As always, we finished with a hard flash session on the sofa. We went a little risqué and had her peeling off one of my Simpsons T-shirts, fun.
Overall a shoot that taught me a few things. The power of props, colour and confidence in the process.
