photo shoot, part 2

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This is my cover image for the Arty Bollocks punk ball. Or would be if there was a cover... and I had anything to say about it.

I was standing around waiting for a model for quite a while. Then this kid appeared and he was willing to work with me. Jaden didn't seem too excited, though. He said he was working on his rage. Before shooting I had wandered over the seventh floor of the hotel, and found a stairway with great brass railings, and great light (north-facing windows with a building reflecting diffuse light in). I took a few that turned out OK, but this one he bit his sunglasses and gave me a bit of his rage look. I decided to mess with the colors. I basically played with the hue slider, but I had to mask him out so I could shift the hue in one direction for him, and another direction for the railings and walls. Otherwise everything would have been just about the same color.

The shoot was in the evening, at The Pfister, the fanciest hotel in town. There were more photographers and many more models. Many photographers brought lights, and most shoots were one-on-one. I still shot a few from the sidelines, but not many of them turned out. This one did.


Abby

The photographer was way off to the left, so I'm not sure what she had for a background, but I was happy with the painting back there. A few photographers tried to match the models to the paintings. I think there are some slight similarities between this model and the painting. I took it one while I was standing around waiting for another model.

Then one showed up and I took her to the stairway.


Colleen

I took about half a dozen shots. Halfway through she took her jacket off. I didn't notice the tattoos until after I got home. I saw she was very pretty, but I didn't notice her green eyes until the next day.



This model was posing for someone, near a large painting. When they were done, I tried to get her to pose like the woman in it, but it didn't work out. I then took her around the corner, to a piano. This is another one of my favorites of the day.


Electa

For the second shot, she leaned over on her elbow. I saw that she paralleled the slant of the piano top. It turned out really well. I had trouble with my flash unit. I don't know how to operate in manual settings, so I had to have my camera on automatic. This changed the ISO to 1600, which is really high, and made the pics very grainy.

And then we gathered to smash the disco ball. Our leader envisioned a group of punks gathered around to smash it. The old punk-smash-disco theme. She picked the one kid to be kindof a Sid Vicious figure, who turned out to be that first one that I shot, who said he was channeling his rage.


This was cropped from a tiny corner of a bad picture. It was very grainy and overly bright, due to a couple of other flashes going off, but I thought it was interesting.


Dance party.



They had done a practice smash before this, just to see how it came apart, and make sure it would actually smash. By this time our Sid was stomping and punching around the stage, showing his rage.
And then he went away while everybody got set up. While he was gone, some of the other models kinda posed onstage.



These two pics feel like they're from a play or musical. Sober girl in front was posing, but otherwise the girls were just hanging out looking cool.



The show was back on. Young Sid was posturing and really getting into it.



And then he stomped on it. All the flashes went off. I used kind of a long exposure, hoping to catch one of them to light up the subject. But it was so long that everything was blurry, and there were several flashes, and everything was blurry and washed out. It looked bad on the back of my camera, but when I put it on my computer, I saw the potential. I punched up the contrast and saturation, and here it is.



I like it.

This shoot happened in the big ballroom. The tables were set up around the room, but the chairs were all stacked up. After checking the safety of said stack, I found a petite model and had her climb up on this throne.


I like Neoka's boots.

I heard some people were down on the second and third floors, including in a room. I went down and there were a lot of people hanging around on 3, including a group who was getting rather rambunctious. I got Juana and went down to a marble statue on a landing. I got only a few shots before someone came through to announce we had to leave the floor. We were making too much noise by the guest rooms.


The shot came out in black, white and brown, so I added some color.



Emi was shooting this girl (Katie) on the striped couch. I held her light overhead, for a while. She was apologetic for using me like that (though I'm the one who offered). I said I didn't mind as long as I got to take a couple of shots.



Back in the ballroom, a woman was on a ladder setting up this tableau. I like it from this angle. I'm looking forward to seeing her shot.



Then they had fun trying to think of other scenes to try. Someone thought of bringing the devil girl in and putting her in the middle.



Here's where someone was trying enact a scene from a painting. Two or three photographers got these two doing the kiss in the painting behind them. Then another came up and said, "OK, let's do that again, but this time I want you to roll your eyes." Very cute. :-)



And that was about it.