Garage Studios

So heres some background to the delicious new shots we have been banging out at the studio, shot by DD with some Art Direction by M.Halls. Dont be tricked into thinking that this was done in post production- apart from a slight tweak on the contrast- this was all done in camera. Hopefully you can see this from the set-up shots below.

So here is one of the finished images, of the brilliant model Skin, who came down from Scotland for this shoot…..

So heres a bit about how we did this….

Matt had been shooting some bikes for a Fixed Gear book that is coming out soon, the same one i went to Italy for a few months back, and the product shoots werent that exciting- bikes being pretty 2d and hard to shoot. I suggest painting the light in on some long exposures, with a torch maybe, or a bit like my mobile phone lit portraits- but next time I came in found matt waving a big flourescent tube about over the bike. The shots began to look really exciting. I managed to convince him that we should use this idea for the next Source cover- but jazz it up a bit- and taking this idea further he put thin strips of gel over the tubes- and on an 8s exposure, walked the light around the band- or as in the shot below to accompany the interview- just walked behind them. We used a Bowens 500w to freeze the band members in place- and told them to keep still- and hey presto- a fairly sharp image.

Skin, a brilliant model, and stunning girl came down from Scotland and wanted to book in a shoot- and had with her some pretty good latex dresses. Now I get hella tired of a lot of the trad fetish shoots out there- all that girls in bathrooms and lying on lino floors- its a bit played out now- so we decided to push this towards a fashion editorial edge. I asked Stevi and Emma to help with the styling and see what they could bring and not only did they want to push the 80′s look that I was going for, and put it together perfectly, but also made a killer hat brim, modelled on the classic kylie cover shot- which you can see Skin wearing above, plus they threw in some ace accessories.

So back to the technical, I lit Skin with a Bowens 500W, beauty dish, high up and to camera right, you can see it in the set up below. Its a great clean light, and metered at around f8. We then tested the flouro tube behind which seemed to need about 2 seconds to drag it across the frame behind and leave a smooth trail. Then as in the pic below we had 2 small tubes one each side, that carve the looping shapes into the left and right of the frame. To ensure that we didnt get fringing or a blurred face, all tube lights were kept out of frame until the flash had fired. Skin then waited a fraction of a second, for Matt to start moving the background light to the right of the frame, as she hit a certain point she blocked the backlight, and as you can see in the shot above, makes a shadow effect on the lightwall. At the same time, the handheld tube on the left of frame was swinging upwards which pushed back some of the detail of the face- by throwing too much light onto the camera sensor and overexposing that edge.

It probably took about 25 attempts to get this lead shot above right- but was worth the effort, its a lot of timings to get spot on, and marks to be hit. We did a couple of more set-ups but this is the shot of the day for sure….

But thats how we did it, in case you wondered.

So hopefully this has got your creative ideas flowing. If you want to book us for a shoot then please just drop an email, we cover all aspects from Shoot Production, casting models, Hair and Mke-Up, Styling, Art Direction and Photography- and if you want to get involved in the whole process thats fine by us. Just let us know what the brief is and we can tailor a shoot for your needs.

The Garage-Studios team.