Today I was joined by the talented Hannah Grace Taylor. She has designed several of the theatre posters featured at the ADC Theatre and Corpus Playroom, including my favourite: the Racing Demon poster. If you have not already seen it, then have a look at her art webpage. We had been chatting a bit beforehand on Facebook and had a general idea for what we wanted to do. Our theme centred around old stars like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly. Hannah arrived dressed in 50s clothes, and with the sun still up in the sky we decided to do some daylight photos before switching over to the projector and flashes.
Despite what this looks like we are not cleaning windows. We wanted to use the balcony door to create the illusion of a rainy day. You would think that the English weather would take care of that, but here we had to give it a helping hand – go figure!Here is the shot of Hannah on the other side of the window. To get the best effect we needed to apply the water while shooting so I was holding the camera with one hand and the spray bottle with the other.Same setup as before, but here with a colder white balance. I do not often name my photos, but this is “Snow White”.This is pretty typical of my photo shoots, we start with one plan, and then sidetrack onto something else. I really liked these rainy window photos, here we tried a brighter editing.We also tried swapping positions. Here the water droplets show up better, but the background is busier.
Moon River, wider than a mile, I’m crossing you in style some day. Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker, wherever you’re going I’m going your way. Two drifters off to see the world. There’s such a lot of world to see. We’re after the same rainbow’s end– waiting ’round the bend, my huckleberry friend, Moon River and me
This photo is inspired by a Vogue fashion photo with Grace Kelly. There is quite a bit of Photoshopping to make the two un-ironed sheets look smooth.This pose was inspired by a photo of Elizabeth Taylor (not related).The curtains were pulled for the projector, but we talked about possibly going out to photograph during the golden hour. When Hannah peaked out I snapped this next set of photos, and our projection shoot got derailed again.Here we used Bea’s “Secret Smile” trick.Restricted light creates magic. Why did we not think of using the roller blinds earlier?One of Hannah’s drawings projected onto her. This photo is almost like a Greek statue.The flower pattern is spreading over Hannah’s face. I asked her to step away from the wall to separate her from her shadow.This photo is not as clean as the other photos, but it showcases another one of Hannah’s drawings, and I liked the concept so here it is. To the left Hannah’s shadow. Only minor Photoshopping to clean up the borders of the photo and adjust curves.Again sidetracked while doing projection photos. The flash photos just looked so much better.One more, then back to the projection photos.The final projection photo. Hannah with an older Elizabeth Taylor.
This was a really fun photo shoot. We did not do as many projection photos as we had planned, but I think with good reason. Many thanks to Hannah! Hopefully there will be time to do an outdoor photo shoot with her before the summer. To be continued…
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