Half hearted

I'm trying hard this year to push myself in my photography and try new things and this shot reflects one of those things.

I'm playing with how I present people in the portraits I take and in this beauty shoot with Laura I deliberately left half her face out of the shoot and I heart this image (I heard some kids say this recently so it must be cool).

I am sure we are programmed to expect to see two eyes reflected back at us when we look at a face and so this portrait of Laura plays with that expectation.

I feel this is a technique I'm going to be using a lot more of.

pete

Once you go black you never go back

An old phrase I once heard when I dated a rather gorgeous black lady in my youth and it seemed to fit with this image of Laura for other reasons.

As part of her beauty shoot in Essex Laura turned up with this fantastic fur (fake calm down) coat and I knew instantly how well it would look against our black background.  Taking that cue to convert this image into black & white just reminded me how much I adore black & white portrait photography.  Increasingly I prefer to use my lastolite HiLite with a black cover against its standard white.

When you have an image this strong colour seems to serve no other purpose that to distract and reverting to black & white delivers a clarity colour can never achieve.

Black and white is the erm new black.

pete

The blues

A number of factors came together without any real planning for this shoot with Nicole at the Dieselpunk Studios.

Her outfit was primarily blue, the floor was a great blue and the walls of the studio had recently been painted blue.  I am not a suspicious man but even I stopped for a moment and wondered how this had all come to be and then I stopped thinking and starting taking shots of a stunning model in a great environment.

Sometimes things are just right without lots of planning.

pete

Hiding in plain sight

A beautiful model, in sexy attire, with a gothic style boudoir shoot - of course it makes sense to hide Charlotte behind the net effect curtains doesn't it?

Mystery is always sexy and the impact of having Charlotte partially covered by the curtains adds a whole lotta mystery to this shot.  Combine that with the gothic style and the muted colours and this becomes a subtle but highly charged boudoir photograph.

Mystery isn't just for that annoying woman on murder she wrote.

pete

Less is more

A big decision in taking a photograph is what to leave out - it says as much, or in this case much more, than the elements you include.

For this shot ,with the model Nicole, we carefully arranged her pose and her hair to hide her clothes (shorts/bra for the curious amongst you) and by doing so created the illusion of nakedness.  Hiding her clothes made the photograph say something very different.

 

Hell, I'm virtually a magician ;-)

pete