Fashion – Photographer Karl Taylor – Website www.karltaylor.co.uk

LOCATION: Karl Taylor Studio

CAMERA AND LENS: Hasselblad H2, 80mm Lens.

LIGHTING: 1 Elinchrom 1200RX with Beauty Dish, 1 Elinchrom 1200RX with background reflector dish.

CREATIVE PROCESS: For this image I wanted to capture a beautiful model in an unconventional way. I had been toying with the idea in my mind for a shot of a girl slipping on a banana skin whilst carrying drinks, however I ditched the idea of the banana in favour of a more explosive looking image. The shot was achieved with just two studio lights and some large white polyboards and a crash mat. It took several attempts to get the jump right and capture the expression. The model Emma did a fantastic job and was very professional, repeating the jump over and over until I was happy with the pose. The silky dress was chosen for it’s “ripple in the wind” quality and the drinks were shot separately under the same lighting set up. It was all filmed for my Fashion & Beauty DVD and you can see the trailer on my website for more info. I love the feel of the shot and the subtlety of tonal range in the background and shadow.

POST PRODUCTION: The models image is pretty much as is, I then removed the crash mat from the scene and photographed the empty scene for the background. I then photographed two separate flying drink shots which my assistant threw in the air several times until I got the right spread of liquid. I comped the drinks into the main shot and defocused the foreground drink to add some depth to the image. and also added the shadow on the floor by drawing in an outline in Photoshop and filling with grey and building up several blurred and reduced opacity layers.

Note from Crash – Karl’s DVD’s are excellent and highly recommended. Check them out here: Fashion and Beauty DVD

Fashion – Photographer Karl Taylor – Website www.karltaylor.co.uk

LOCATION: Karl Taylor Studio

CAMERA AND LENS: Hasselblad H2, 80mm Lens.

LIGHTING: 4 Elinchrom lights, 1 with a Recta Softbox top back left and 3 other lights with honeycomb grids in various thicknesses to pinpoint  the light to where I  needed it.

CREATIVE PROCESS: This image was for a regular client of mine who manufacture bespoke furniture. The basically told me to make this chair look sexy! The trick here was to not let the model overpower the product shot so I placed her further back to give the chair more promenance at the front. Using the honeycomb grids I highlighted several areas of the chair to add mood and show off the richness of the wood. I tried to keep the lighting on the model more subtle and mysterious to help enhance the sexy feel to the shot. It took a little bit of time to identify the best pose but this was my favourite as the model is looking towards where the client logo and copy were to be placed in the final ad.

POST PRODUCTION: Post Production was limted to a little bit of cleaning up on the floor and extending the background out the left a little. Other than that there was only a little bit of Photoshop dodging and burning on the model and chair.

Portraits – Photographer Julia Boggio – Website www.juliaboggiophotography.com

LOCATION: Julia Boggio Studios, Wimbledon, UK

CAMERA AND LENS: Canon EOS 5D Mk II with 24-70mm lens set to ISO 100 f/
13 at 1/160th.

LIGHTING: Broncolor Para 170 FB and Broncolor Pulso G 1600J head with
Pulsoflex C soft box attached

CREATIVE PROCESS: I was working on the portfolio for my new photography studio and was playing with the idea of shooting children as famous icons. My make-up artist’s son had long brown hair and I thought he’d make a great little Elvis. His parents even subjected him to Elvis videos on You Tube to help him perfect the King’s lip curl. I liked the idea of putting our little Elvis in front of the Union Jack, even though Elvis is an American icon. I’m an American in the UK, too, after all!

POST PRODUCTION: We removed a door from the flag because the flag is actually a bit of wallpaper in our studio and there is a big door that leads into our post-production area on the left side. I also added in some blur to bring focus to Elvis and then added grain to the whole image.

Portraits – Photographer Frank Doorhof – Website www.frankdoorhof.com

LOCATION: My studio in Emmeloord.

CAMERA AND LENS: Phase One DF with Leaf AptusII7 digital back

LIGHTING: One Elinchrom RX600 with reflector and grid and one strip light as fill in light to open up the shadows just a bit. The lamp was a gift from my parents for use in the studio and contains high wattage tungsten bulbs so we have lots of light when mixing it with strobes.

CREATIVE PROCESS: This one had some planning, we were planning for some time to do a session with clowns and a circus look in the studio, as you can see the session went another direction. I think that’s the good thing from free work, although you have a plan you can always expand on that plan and continue to build. In this case we build to something much more extreme than planned simply because our model could carry the expressions I wanted, in cases like this I can be very picky in what I choose, the shot has to be just the way I want, and to be honest two days later I will always see something I would have changed

POST PRODUCTION: Was mainly changing the colors and adding a sharpening layer, as mentioned with the other shots I see Photoshop as icing on the cake and use it mostly to finish what I couldn’t do with light or in camera, in this case the more sharpening and the color tone. All shots are always minor in Photoshop; my rule of thumb is often that one should not need more than 5-10 minutes in Photoshop.

Street – Photographer Crash Taylor - Website www.crashtaylor.com

LOCATION: Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

CAMERA AND LENS: Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 24-105 f4 L IS

LIGHTING: Natural light

CREATIVE PROCESS: I was walking back to the car after shopping with my family and saw this awesome ruined hotel. I loved the textures and colours but it was missing something. It definitely needed something else to finish it off. I had a problem because it was an extremely busy road and it was probably 10 mins before there was a break in the traffic. Just as I was about to pack up, I got a 30 second traffic break and miraculously these 3 people walked right into the my frame and snap, job done.

POST PRODUCTION: I processed the image in Photoshop CS4 using my HDR techniques to give it that high contrast detailed surreal look. It really brings out the textures in the building etc… I muted the colours using curves and added a lens flare. I also added my cinematic yellow film filter action to warm it up a little and finished it off with some 800 ISO film grain.

Fashion – Photographer Frank Doorhof - Website www.frankdoorhof.com

LOCATION: Studio Emmeloord

CAMERA AND LENS: Canon 5D with 70-200 f2.8 IS L

LIGHTING: Elinchrom – I used a beauty dish and two accents plus one strobe on the background.

CREATIVE PROCESS: I love the more “fantasy” side of photography; I’m always looking for something that is more than a posed model with jeans and a top. In this case the cup and saucer looked liked a fantastic addition to her red hair and almost white face. So from this, the idea was born and made to fit thanks to an amazing MUA and model of course.

POST PRODUCTION: As always was rather limited, I strongly believe that a shot should be 100% there when you press the shutter, if not you shouldn’t shoot but change things until it’s perfect. In this image, most of the work was done on the skin to even it out and give it that porcelain look. Most of the look was achieved by the MUA although Photoshop was needed to achieve the final result.

Fashion – Photographer Sarah Johnson  – Website www.sarahlouisephotography.com

LOCATION: Studio

CAMERA AND LENS: Canon 5d and 24-70mm lens

LIGHTING: I used a large reflector on the background and also one on the model, quite far away from her so the light was nice and soft.

CREATIVE PROCESS: The images were for a story about eco fashion, so I wanted to keep them light and fresh and natural, I did this with lots of light and a nice big amount of light on the background to keep it very bright.

POST PRODUCTION: I played around with the tones on this image to give the denim a slightly weathered hue; I wanted to keep the images soft and clean.