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Saturday 23 June 2012

Blended into the Background

Uncertain if it should be blue skies and warm sun, or very much ‘cold grey days’ that call for the need of warm clothes, the weather has been fairly unpredictable. These photos were taken in a shoot with my sister only a couple of days ago on a warm, sunny afternoon. Now as I write, the grass heads that were a gold rust colour, are slowly dripping with this morning's collected rain.


I chose this vintage dress because the colours tied so well with the background and that lovely light! I think the print of the dress looks very much like a rich coloured painting of a garden.


You can usually count on my sister being the person that takes the photos of me for this blog, and I'm often the photographer for the photos on her blog - although sometimes my mum is the photographer. But I still always enjoy a photo-shoot, whether it's me behind the camera, me in front of the camera, or taking turns in both posing and clicking the camera button. In a shoot with my sister, the styling is our own, while often I'm constantly demanding Ireland to do certain poses - and sometimes very challenging ones. But in this shoot, though there was still a lot of me trying to get Ireland to keep a pose while I try to photograph it at different angles, there was also a lot of Ireland's demands for me to jump. Though unfortunately the pictures of me doing so, have all been taken in sports mode (as well as a lot of other photos) so they were unusable. 

This shoot took part in one of our horse paddocks, which to get to was only a simple walk from our house, with me collecting pink and orange flowers as we went, avoiding getting weeds and seed heads stuck in our clothes - which has become something of a talent. This was in the place that yesterday I ran around in after discovering a technique that gave my horse (and me) a bit of a workout: I gave him some food, kept some, and ran for it - very successful (if of course you have a horse that loves food - and I've never met a horse that doesn't!)

I found this vintage dress under a red silk maxi and a dusty pink nightgown in a small pile of my mum's hoards of vintage and second hand clothes from charity shops. It's flattering shape and busy print suggested for the rest of the clothes to be simple, and behold - a floppy wool felted hat ($5 on sale from JayJays), and a vintage silk sash.

If you're someone that does fashion/photography shoots, I'd love it if you left a comment on what goes on during them. Are you positioned by the photographer, or as a photographer, do you like to get the model to do certain poses? Is there often a lot of talking and fun while you're in the middle of a photo-shoot? And who takes your photos? I'd be interested to know.

2 comments:

Rosalind said...

That dress was absolutely made to be photographed outdoors in the backdrops you chose! it's definitely a nature-girl dress that demands to be worn while running in bare feet over dry grass.
During informal shoots for my blog I generally position myself or ask for particular angles, but it's a very two-way process too (my mum is great on details and suggesting movements of my head to catch the light).
When I'm doing the photographing I like to be quite bossy! "Can you stand there...chin up...look to one side...now glance back...' sort of thing.

Sasha said...

Very nice authentic look! :)

I am a photographer and also a model (but not business-wise, just like a hobby)/ As a photographer I don't like to position my model in a certain way. I like them to feel free, play with their body, dance, relaxe, live in front of the camera. When I see an interesting shot, I shoot, or ask a model to hold on to the pose while I change a position etc.
As a model, I like a little bit of direction from a photographer: where to turn head, lower or rise hand a bit, so the frame looks neat.

Hope it helps! :)