Strike a pose, vogue, vogue, vogue...

Photos from today to come tomorrow (hopefully!)

For the first time ever today I did a fashion shoot for some 2nd and maybe 3rd year students with a few different models. It was arranged yesterday as one of the heads of department had seen I had posters up around college asking for people to ask me to photograph their work for them - it's what we do in my college. You scratch my back, I scratch yours :) Usually I think it's 2nd or 3rd year photographers who do that kind of thing but they knew I was keen to learn and build my portfolio so this gave me a much needed boost. Especially since I wasn't doing just one shoot, but 6, and assisting in one other (which was at the very start, probably to give me an idea of what to do). I was using John's D700 which I fell in love with - it's a fantastic solidly built camera. I love the noise it makes and it feels like it's been carved out of a single piece of metal and it looks, feels and sounds like it means business - whereas my camera is quite light and has a kind of a happy feel and noise when it takes a photo. Not that I'm complaining, I love my camera! ^^

I was quite nervous to start with, but had a lot of instruction and guidance from John, the photo technician. I gradually got more and more independent through the day until finally at the last shoot I was completely on my own spare the designer and the model.

My first shoot involved a cute pink dress that was focussed on detail, so we got some macros of that. I won't have any photos of that one to show however as I don't have a model release form and I can't remember which are my photos and which are Johns.

The second shoot I did was a sweets-themed shoot, since the dress took inspiration from quality streets, or as far as I'm aware. It was a purple ra-ra skirt, heels, a semi see-through crop top and a pink bra that shone through slightly. It was really fun to have the model throw the sweets in the air and strike a pose that showed happiness and excitement in a way that kind of said "It's raining chocolate!". I also had four people out of the frame with their hands full of sweets ready to throw into the shot and (unfortunately for her) straight at the model after my count of three. In the end we settled for the solution of a photo of the model and a photo of the sweets being thrown - saved her from getting battered by green and purple ones and allowed for the shot we wanted by tinkering in photoshop.

The third shoot involved a cute pink dress that was going for the theme of high society and something a little more sophisticated. I loved the feathers and beads detail across the waist. The designer didn't want to experiment much and wanted a very simple pose, so it was reasonably short as far as shoots go :)

The fourth shoot had a bit of a background malfunction - I thought the guy said he wanted a white background, but in fact had said he'd wanted black. I figured it was my fault and said sorry, but it was easily changed. No big deal :) It was a really interesting dress, all criss-crossed and quite revealing but covered her rather well at the same time - I'll have a photo of it tomorrow, I'll have photos of all of them tomorrow to put on my blog, Flickr, Model Mayhem and eventually my website when I get it built. It was rather long and the model had an interesting look. She seemed a natural at posing even though she'd never done it before.

The fifth shoot was something I've wanted to do for a while now - Alice in Wonderland. I don't know why it's a theme that appeals to me so much, but it was my favourite shoot of the lot today, I had so much fun! By now I was rather confident in myself and just had a lot of fun and got a buzz from taking such great shots. The model was relaxed in front of the camera and up for experimenting, almost falling over more than once in the process! The dress was really, really well made and looked fantastic. Light baby blue with small white polka dots and it poofed out around the legs, with an opaque white underskirt with a lacy bit at the bottom which poked out from under the dress. She had some cute ruffled shoulder detail going on and a big black ribbon around her waist, and she wore knee-high black socks with cute little black bows and black heels. It was amazingly fun and we all had a laugh doing it!

My last shoot was a world apart from what I'd been doing all day as it was more of a lingerie shoot. She was wearing a lovely sparkly green bustier and boyshorts knickers of the same material, cream peep-toe heels and a white silky hoodie with feathers. The green colour really suited the model's skin tone, which was an added plus. The designer wanted a Victoria's Secret theme and vibe going on, so we chose sexier poses and had a laugh in the process. I got some pretty nice shots from that too with the framing and the colours, not to mention the lighting which was great. I don't know how the models cope with it though, after a few minutes under the lights I felt pretty warm!

Overall, I had a fantastic time and I'm really grateful to Iain - one of the heads of department - and to John for letting me do this and add some fantastic subjects to my portfolio, to the models for letting me use the images, and I can't forget to congratulate the designers on their fantastic handy-work and skill in designing the outfits! I'll be getting the images tomorrow as there wasn't any time today. I think they'd only just started when I arrived at 10am and the last shoot was finished by 4.40pm. Recently I applied for Model Mayhem so I can hopefully work with some models on some of my own projects and maybe on some casting calls. My first application was denied due to me having very little material to show them that was suitable - I can reapply up to 2 times though. After today however I don't think that'll be a problem anymore!