Last Saturday was my final weekend in Cambridge, so I crammed in as much as possible. In addition to photographing the Blood Wedding dress rehearsal, and a morning and afternoon dance show, I also managed to meet up with a group of German live roleplaying enthusiasts around lunch time for a photo shoot in Emmanuel College. I was a bit tired from all the May Balls during the week, and I am happy with how the photos turned out.
Josephine Victoria Carlysle.Here we were going for the Victorian rigid look. I post processed the photo in black and white with a slight split tone, making the dark colours slightly red-orange and the highlights a bit more yellow. Trying to make it subtle, the corners have also been brightened slightly if I remember right.Andrea Thorn, Josephine Victoria Carlysle, Kes von Puch and Antonia Lavendel. Kes’ dress is quite colourful red, so it would be a pity to make all photos black and white. Here is one of the whole group in colour, some in character some out of character.Josephine Victoria Carlysle. Another one of the mourning widow photos.With distracting patterns it helps to keep the colour in the photo to help with separation of subject and background. Here is Andrea Thorn.Andrea Thorn and Josephine Victoria Carlysle. I first shot this photo with a smaller aperture, but for the final exposure increased the aperture and that added both a bit of vignetting and decreased the depth of field, giving the photo a more intimate feeling and putting the focus clearly on the women.Andrea Thorn and Josephine Victoria Carlysle. In the UK you are not allowed to show guns in public (fake or real). Here out of view in the fellow’s garden we took a few quick shots before stoving them away again.Josephine Victoria Carlysle and Andrea Thorn in the background. One more photo of the guns. This is taken inside the giant tree on the grounds, you might recognise it from my previous ballet photo shoot that was done there (blog post).By placing Florian Platzmann in the window and having him turn his head we got a nice transition from light to shadow across his face.Antonia Lavendel in the same window, but show from a different angle. We asked her to picture seeing something interesting unfold in the courtyard outside the window.Kes von Puch and her petticoat. Kes was a great help giving everyone useful tips on how to refine their poses.Kes von Puch and Florian Platzmann in the background.Josephine Victoria Carlysle in grieving widow mode.Kes von Puch playing with the signs.This might be my favourite photo from the shoot together with the gun photos above. I like the reflection in the window that shows Florian Platzmann’s silhouette, and a glimpse of Andrea Thorn.Antonia Lavendel, Josephine Victoria Carlysle, Kes von Puch, Andrea Thorn and Florian Platzmann. One last group shot before I had to head back to the Sidney Sussex Arts Festival. If you look closely you can see the rain drops.
Many thanks to team Victorian, three of which flew in from Germany with extra bags filled with clothes!
Historical photo shoot! I like…
Great models. Great costumes. Great location. Great work!
Best wishes
Pi