Don't Smile: Xenia Photoshoot

Okay... so as every single one of you will definitely know, this week involved me taking photos of an actual person - something very different to what you've all been getting used to.

They can (almost) all be viewed HERE.

Overall, this is probably going to be my longest post ever - so I won't blame any of you if you just skip through and look at the pictures... I probably would...

This all came about from my 100 Strangers project, on a trip to York I spotted a girl eating an ice cream who, even whilst clearly busy with said ice cream, was kind enough to let me take her portrait. The resulting photograph was Stranger No.42. After getting home and uploading I had seen that I had a new fan so had a look at their profile pictures to determine whether this was my stranger, and much to my surprise, I came across a different picture I had recently seen on 500px. Not only was this my stranger, but I had seen my stranger before in a photo by a photographer from London (see if you can find her... HERE). I still can't quite believe this myself - a girl from Russia, who did some modelling in London, whose pictures made it to my screen days earlier, who then lived in York, before finally walking down that street and onto my camera sensor... I need a statistician to try and figure out some likelihoods here... 

Over the next couple of weeks, much was discussed and it was decided we would try and do a shoot in York with a very summery feel. Little did we know at this point that summer would decide to completely desert us this year. At least this gave us time to thoroughly plan everything we possibly could... styles/lighting options/accessories/locations... This was definitely an advantage for me considering I'd never done anything like this before, and it was only Xenia's 4th shoot - it was good to spend hour after hour simply looking at good photos, listing what I like and dislike about them, learning which poses work, etc. 

So, finally, last Monday we got some sun so the night before we arranged to do it then... 

Part of what we were aiming for was that snapshotty style, with a lot of flare and loss of contrast - and to not be too careful with composition. A really shallow depth of field for foreground objects also seemed to be popular in this style - so I ended up just sticking with my 50mm 1.8 - and for the whole shoot used it wide open with no lens hood. One of the first shots was this one, which is quite possibly my favourite... (so what if not snapshotty... the rim light couldn't be better and I like the symmetry... this set me up for much more symmetry later on)

When the sun came out more from behind thin clouds, the lighting got a lot more difficult. I armed my very helpful sister with my big silver reflector and I had my orange flash (which I didn't really want to use, and mainly avoided) - so after a bit of experimenting finally got to some acceptable photos... but not before things like this...  I don't think Xenia would be too happy to completely lose her head in every photo, so something would have to change...

There were also some mistakes made in playing around with the dappled light... this looks quite terrifying!..

Throughout all of this, whilst concentrating a lot on the ever changing light as the sun got lower and lower and came in and out from behind clouds, it was really quite difficult to keep in mind that I was trying to break rules here... finding myself falling back into thirds, trying to expose correctly and things. Silly me...

However, even with these few mistakes and steep learning curves - overall it was made spectacularly easier by how good at all of this Xenia was. Considering this was only her 4th shoot, ever, she absolutely knew what she was doing (glad someone did!)... leaving me to simply point the camera and click away. She was full of expressions and always seemed to find somewhere for her arms, which I always seem to struggle with ideas for. Overall I couldn't have wished for a more friendly, professional model for my first outdoor shoot... On top of this, she wasn't afraid to jump into the long grasses with bare legs and sit in the wet underlayers... I was impressed.

Here are a few outtakes then - just goes to show it can be fun having a camera pointed at you... 

As far as I can remember, every one of those shots above was a result of trying to take some straight faced, serious photos. This is a problem I am kind of used to now from my stranger portraits... at least in these instances I wasn't keeping anyone waiting in the middle of the street!

And, finally, some photos of an attacking fly... 

By this point in the post, even I am starting to lose track of what I've said and where I am, so I'll end it soon...

The end of the day for me consisted of a very rushed game of Jenga (turns out they don't have it in Russia?!?) and a dash back to the station for the 10.20 train, which didn't get me back into Sheffield until 4 minutes past midnight... still, overall the late night was definitely worth it and I can't wait to shoot with Xenia again... just need some more ideas now...

If anyone hasn't already seen - the final photos can be seen HERE, so please do go over there and have a quick look (and like my page!). 

See you all next week - probably with some graduation photos and/or some more photos from Keld.