Making process:
Today wasn’t the easiest day to take a photoshoot, I found out that my grandpa died this morning, which was very heavy news, but I couldn’t delay this any longer. My models didn’t know, as I wanted their smiles to be genuine in the photos. The evening before, I had all outfits and props prepared in a luggage at the front door to just be able to grab in the morning. At 10am, Ale (one of my models), came to my house cause she lives quite close. She brought two bracelets. From there we went to Jon (my boyfriend), to borrow the lego flower bouquets. On the way we also stopped to buy a bouquet of daffodils (I wanted to use some natural flowers too). We arrived at school at around 10:30, and we had time to arrange all outfits on separate chairs with their matching props.
At 11am, Mr and Kaavya (my other model), arrived as well. She brought a yellow top, which would turn out useful. While arranging everything into our little studio, Mr explained how the equipment works, and how lighting can be controlled. We took some test photos to decide on the best camera setting and then we were good to go.
Since I also have my own camera, I know some things about photography, but using Mr’s camera was definitely a different experience, since the flash was connected to the softboxes, the colours and details really popped. I used the zoom 70-200mm and altered a lot between the distances.
The one problem I encountered was on the birds-eye-view photos of Kaavya, in the red outfit, something about the proportions just didn’t look right. At first it was too dark, probably because my body was covering one of the softboxes, cause I had to get on a chair to get those photos from above. Also for some close ups of lego flowers I did not like whiteness with the camera. These I ended up taking on my phone, giving them a nice warm tone.
Behind the scenes:
I’m really happy with how the photos turned out, and I have a lot to choose from. I loved the idea of using lego flowers, since it is something innovative and creative. But the real daffodils were definitely an advantage to have. If I were to do this again I would organise it a bit earlier, since I didn’t rely on the weather for this photoshoot, just the availability of my models and Mr for the equipment. I would buy an extra bouquet of real flowers just in case.
Favourites:
Red:
Yellow:
Green:
Pink:
Blue:
Additional photos:
In the worst case scenario that the photoshoot outside doesn’t turn out well, I took some precautions by taking some photos of myself in the dress in the studio too. They most probably will not appear anywhere in the magazine but it caused no harm to stay an extra 10-15 minutes to take them. I may use one of them as the photo next to the editor’s letter.
After seeing these photos I realised I could’ve made the girls do some of other poses as well, but it was too late for that, so next time I will be less afraid of trying weird poses or angles cause those are the photos that turn out the most unique.