Playing with Light: In the Studio with Kym

 

I do a lot of location work and lean toward natural light, but Kym invited me to come and shoot her in a studio context. We decided on a few themes ranging from elegant dresses through to art and implied nude. Being mindful of blanket statements but on a very technical level, photography is concerned with control of light.

Kym is of Chinese ethnicity, and we wanted to play with her skin tones. High-key images have their place, especially in the context of product photography but leave little to the imagination and we sought to bring some erotic mystery, including the portraits. I took these using my A7body set to F11 and 1/125 and 35mm third-party prime lens.

Rose

 

Rose is a very experienced model from a performing arts background. I’d seen her work and was very aware of her professionally for a few years. Serendipity and closer geographical proximity saw us arranging a shoot. This had to be rearranged on a couple of occasions, due to bereavement and other, unforeseeable events.  

We discussed themes beginning with boudoir and culminating with art nude.  

The graduation is part narrative but on a very practical level, respect for the model. While experienced photographers and models can quickly find rapport, especially if pre-shoot communication is of a high standard and conducted properly, gentle, tapered progression is always preferable. Basic decency and respect aside, it makes for a more comfortable, relaxed and fluid shoot-which ultimately tells in the images.  

Rapport quickly established; our shoot extended the two hours scheduled. I shot the mono images with my Fuji XT100 and 50mm 1.8 Viltrox lens. The colour were taken with my Sony A7 and 35mm 1.8 and A6300 with 23mm 1.4 Viltrox .  

Ayla

 

I’d been wanting to work with Ayla for some time but opportunity, not to mention the pandemic had frustrated this.  A chance conversation in October led to us working through a shoot plan, and ultimately shooting at her home.  

Good pre-shoot communications are paramount, but rapport and trust between photographer and model usually take time to develop. For this reason and regardless of experience, I prefer models to set the pace. 

We warmed up with some flirty fashion, slowly progressing through lingerie, boudoir and art nude. I also brought some props and Ayla unleashed her creativity. Conversation flowed naturally and the two hours proved incredibly productive.  

Most of this set was taken using natural light, Viltrox 23mm 1.4 prime lens and Sony A6000 body, although I used a 50mm 1.8 counterpart and Sony A7.   

* All images copyright Stenning photographic *

Natalia: Bowled Over By The Lady from Moldova

Given the global pandemic and subsequent lockdown, social/model photography was on the back burner for a good ten weeks, or so. However, with the rules relaxed, approaches/proposals have slowly increased.  

Natalia is originally from Moldova and from a dance background, which was immediately obvious. We discussed a mix of lingerie/topless and art nude. She knew of some suitable locations (studios were still closed at this point and given the risks presented by pandemic, socially distancing is more easily managed outdoors).  

Multi-lingual, Natalia’s professionalism was immediately apparent from her pre-shoot communications, so I wasn’t surprised to find her arriving on time and impeccably prepared. Most experienced models can do their own make-up to a decent standard, but I was particularly surprised by her speed and precision in this respect.  

Given her dance background, I wasn’t remotely surprised by her technical ability, poise and understanding of her own body’s most flattering angles. Warm, emotionally intelligent, she was also extremely receptive to direction.  

Much as I suspected, in keeping with its neighbours, Moldova is socially conservative, so modeling (aside from high profile fashion/editorial work) is viewed with suspicion. Given the nature of this shoot, we were particularly discrete and remained unnoticed by passers-by.  

I’ve always fiercely adhered to distancing when working with models, so it will come as little surprise that I alternated between my Sony A7 with 50mm 1.8 lens and Sony Alpha with 85mm 2.8.