May 30, 2008 11:57 PM
This morning I still had my hopes up that i would indeed be shooting in a flock of pigeons... I had gotten an early call from our location manager, telling me that the location hadn't yet said "no" and she had a good feeling about it. That was enough for me, I was excited! I figured if he was still teetering, he could be convinced!
It turns out no, he wasn't teetering. Apparently we are really hard to actually say the word "no" to. Location manager and I went around there this morning, to beg, bribe, whatever. I pulled out every stop I could think of. Nothing worked, I thought we had the location about 5 times, but then it always ended up with a screwed up face and the statement that we were just making "bloody pictures for dirty perverts to whack off to".
whatevs.
After this morning I was feeling pretty deflated. The model, Alisa was awesome and I really wanted to do something cool with her. Someone suggested an old railway bridge, sounded ok to me. I figured I would do something cool with the Verso I had hired for the Pigeon shoot. As it turns out, I didn't end up using it for the actual shoot (though I used it for yesterday's) instead we waited for the sun to get low and used the natural light. The trains screaming past at high speed provided some excitement, and its pretty hard to get a bad shoot with a model as great as I had today.
May 29, 2008 11:57 PM
I shot Noelle today, one of my fave models (also seen in the BMX shoot). She is hilarious, and kept me and the rest on the crew in stitches the entire day. She was cool about the spikes from the chestnuts, about the nippy autumn weather and the fast food we had for lunch.
For some reason I have never been completely happy with my work on her previous solo shoots, something has always gone wrong, or the location wasn't amazing (something i'm getting more and more fussy about). So the pressure was on to do her justice in this one.
Although I am still picking chestnut spines out of my socks, jeans and legs, it was worth it.
May 28, 2008 9:05 PM
Found a flock of pigeons and a great space today... but due to some shitty misinformation about the company, the building owner is reluctant to rent us the space. Unfortunately, people who own warehouses in the inner city are not easily persuaded by a couple of hundred bucks either.
I'm really upset about it. I guess being in the industry, shooting, meeting cool models and knowing all the great people I work with. I forget that some people are really against any kind of eroticism. It seems for them there is no distinction between a bunch of educated, caring (woah, I know) people creating erotica and some predatory hacks exploiting desperate deluded girls.
It always takes me by surprise when peoples reaction to me changes once the subject of my job comes up. I don't talk openly about the nature of what I shoot with strangers (purely to avoid a billion questions) but in a situation like this one, I feel I have to be honest and tell people what I'm gonna be shooting in their warehouse.
I wish I could show people what goes on behind the scenes, that the models want to be there, we enjoy our jobs, we know what we are doing and that there are no victims in the equation. Ah well, whether it's on Friday or not, I'll have my pigeon shoot eventually.
May 27, 2008 9:22 PM
I love rooftops, especially in the city. When I was a kid I used to see rooftops in movies (most often set in NY) and think to myself how cool they were, and how my life would be complete if I could just live in an apartment with an accessible rooftop. I accomplished that goal a few years back, and didn't feel that sense of completion I expected at age 13 (maybe i would if it was all mine and I owned the sucka). It didn't disappoint though, and I spent a considerable amount of time up there, sun baking, reading books and being inspired by the sense of calm being so high up brought.
Time to start making that inspiration pay off. Since its winter and I'm only shooting a couple of times a week, I've had lots of time to plan. I went out location scouting today, and found these two spaces...
They may look drab now, but I have plans... One is supposed to come together this friday, but its really very tentative and involves me visiting said location twice per day, every day until the shoot to feed some pigeons. I'm pretty dubious about it actually coming together, but if it does its gonna be fantastic!
May 21, 2008 9:40 PM
After the shoot yesterday we were packing up, when all of a sudden the clouds parted and we were graced with about 30 seconds of this AMAZING light. After 20 seconds of fumbling with my camera and waving my arms around, I managed to get this shot.
May 20, 2008 11:56 PM
Just one shoot today, but with an amazing model. Our location scouting last week paid off, as we went to a great little deserted country road. Valentina was stunning, she hardly spoke a word of english but her natural sass made up for our communication breakdown. I was really after rain, but I was quite worried how it would show up in the pictures, luckily the rain was light, and it looked really amazing in the pics. I think the picture below will be too small to show up the rain droplets, but look closely.
...and one more shot of Valentina herself because she is amazing.
May 19, 2008 9:00 PM
Some models are just a total pleasure to shoot, Cleo is one of those models. I was editing this shoot today and there were just so many great moments in it. She has this great bratty look about her that I just love. I had totally forgotten about this shoot, so it was pleasure to go back through it and pick this picture for the blog. I was feeling all experimental that day, and took some neat risks that really paid off.
May 18, 2008 10:00 PM
I've been busy editing my older stuff recently, it kinda sucks for the blog because I haven't had that much stuff to put up, except the odd girl/girl shoot. So until I get my edits under control (this week) i'll post some pictures from some of my older favorite shoots.
This picture is from Laundromat Girls, I love the fun colors and lovely light.
May 16, 2008 11:06 PM
It's been a long week, and I'm really not digging this quiet time of year. It seems like all the naked girls have decided Melbourne is too cold and have moved on to warmer places... pussys.
I'm still on girl/girl duty, This week I shot Shaminee and Becky T. The location was nice and basic, great light coming in. Plus, I love those retro chairs, I see one and I just cant help shooting on it (if i ever got to a location with a Featherston contour chair i would loose my shit). The sun + flashhead combo looked ace, and is a great way to light girl/girls because even in the shadows there is definition. Shaminee was great, she gets so into the shoots and I get such good facial expressions from her.
May 13, 2008 2:19 PM
Yesterday, as luck would have it, location scouting for a field with hay bales took me out towards Daylesford. So I took the opportunity to revisit & photograph those foxes. Though a bit smellier than they were the other day, they still looked beautiful. Here are a couple of pictures...
May 11, 2008 10:49 PM
I just got back from a really indulgent weekend in Daylesford courtesy of my wonderful boyfriend... There were so many great photo opportunities it was kinda depressing, as I didn't actually bring my camera, stupid. The b&b we stayed at resembled something from a fairytale, Autumn really is my favorite time of year. At one point, while driving home, I saw a fence with two freshly killed foxes strung up on it. They looked perfect, like they must have been poisoned because there was no blood or flies or anything. They were fluffy, beautiful and looked well fed, I spent the next 15 minutes thinking of all the ways I could have photographed them if only I had brought my camera... grrr!
While i would dearly love to be mixing it up with pictures of dead foxes right now, I'll just have to settle for near naked girls (again). Here is a picture from a recent shoot of mine that has recently gone live on AW, Analisa's first solo shoot.
enjoy it while it lasts, dead animals coming soon.
May 6, 2008 10:08 PM
This morning got off to a good start. Went out for breakfast with my beloved, my eggs weren't over cooked, on time for work, models were good to go, and I had a lighting setup pre-planned in my head. Gold!
We were shooting in a massive warehouse that changes all the time. This time it was all open and messy, just the way i wanted it! After a short debate with the video team, we decided to make the most of the strong rafters and hang a softbox from the ceiling. The effect was lovely, in the dark warehouse it looked like there was a soft spotlight falling down onto the girls. I expected the positions to be really tricky to light, especially the more explicit ones, but it was actually pretty good. The models were great and understood what was working and what wasn't, so that saved me a lot of fussing and explaining.
I'm really happy with the effect. There are some great shots and they flow together really well, as I was able to get all the way around the models. Sometimes I envy photographers who only have to produce one or two usable shots for an end product. It is quite a different way of shooting to try and produce a couple of hundred great shots to make up a set. That said, if i had all the hopes and effort that go into a shoot riding on one picture, I'm sure I wouldn't envy them.
May 4, 2008 2:21 PM
On friday, I shot Pillow Fight Girls. A pretty big production, involving 3 models, a hired venue that we had to be out of at 2pm, pillows with holes cut in them, a shitload of flashheads and bags and bags of feathers.
A typical Abbywinters shoot has a stills and a video component, we nearly always shoot stills first, because it lets the models practice in a sense for video, when audio is a concern. Problem is the the models and set get dirty, wet, or say covered in feathers, it has to be dry/spotless again by lunchtime when we then shoot the video.
The cleanup was MASSIVE, plus there was another photo crew that had hired the venue for the afternoon, and were getting pissy (understandably) when there were errant feathers floating around.
The shoot looks great, I'm so happy with it. Its a shame i didn't have a little more time, everything looked so good i could have shot it all day...
