Part 2

The Wake Up Call

As promised here's the second part of "Wake up Call" ......And as mentioned in the first part I will chat about how I go about shooting swimwear and how I light my subjects. Or at least for this editorial anyway.

I have been shooting swim for about 6-7 years now before that it was just fashion..... all clothes. I mostly shoot on the beach as I think it looks a bit weird to shoot swimwear any where else. 80-90 percent of the shoots you see in magazines have either sand, sea or surf e.g on location........ unless you are shooting Resort wear. All shoots should have a theme to them so the shots look cohesive and try and tell a story. But if it's for a brand and you are shooting a look book or a campaign then the light needs to be consistent so the swimwear stands out.

Anyway I approached this shoot the same way I approached a couple of my shoots that I did for my book "Surface to Soul" that's having a rough idea were and how I was going to shoot then just working the angels and poses of my model Maria. Light wise it was just before sunrise so the light was soft and warm for about 20 minutes which was good for a few shots then once the sun came up I positioned Maria in front of the sun and shot back lit. Some thing I love to do a lot of the time as you don't get hard direct sun light on your subjects and the results look soft and dream like. For the fourth too last shot in this editorial were Maria is lying face down I used a reflector to bounce the light back into her so I got more of a edgier look to the picture e.g the light was even and there were no shadows and has a shiny feel to it.

One of the rules of thumb when I am shooting on the beach or should I say when on location is that I use the "One Sun Rule" that is one light source and I bounce and or diffuse it to get the effect that I desire. YES you can warm your images up when you do the post production and YES you can brighten and increase or decrease the contrast when in photoshop but the one thing you can't do is change the light ........well to a certain degree you can but it is always better to do every thing in camera than spend hours on the computer trying to fix everything up. Second rule of thumb always check to see where the sun is going to be coming from the day before so you can plan were you are going to shoot and at what time of day. Because you don't want a "Wake Up Call"  on the day of your shoot............ENJOY