∴One Day, Two Photos∴

...and a long overdue thank you

The change from February to March always heralds a particularly busy time for me as a freelance photographer. Spring kicks the snow off its boots for what it hopes is the last time, and shoots start popping up as the season gets underway. As such, I’m sandwiching this newsletter between three shoots (two yesterday and one today up until a moment ago), a night sure to be long with editing, and prep for the next one tomorrow. So, I’ll skip my usual wordiness and simply share two images made yesterday.

The first is from a fashion shoot with one of my oldest clients, Beslow.

There’s a lot to like about working in fashion, but part of the charm for me is navigating the short but focused time with the model, as well as the opportunities I get to experiment with lighting and technique. The overwhelming majority of the models I’ve worked with have been kind and hardworking, doing their best to intuit what the brand and I are asking of them. Neo here, recently arrived from France, was no different. Good-humoured despite the general rush of this Saturday shoot, he picked up on the desired mood quickly and never strayed.

When on a fashion shoot I usually try make one or two images beyond what the brief calls for, just to keep learning and to hold tight to the playfulness of photography. That is, after all, why I got into it in the first place. Yesterday’s shoot was really tight for time, so I squeezed in just one little foray, resulting in the image above. The effect (though a little enhanced and tweaked in Capture One) was made in camera. Or should I say between camera? This effect is achieved by free lensing (or lens whacking, which is a way more suggestive term for it), which means to shoot through a detached lens. Focusing can be tricky, but it effectively makes your lens a macro and the light that hits your sensor can play all manner of tricks. Here’s a split between the RAW and the tone corrections (pre-Photoshop):

I’m working with Neo again tomorrow, and I’ll share a little more from that when I’m ready.

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That was during the day. During the night I headed about an hour north to a university concert hall where Norwegian singer Aurora was performing. I ate a luke-cool dinner of unidentified fried meats in a tan classroom, charged my batteries for a bit, and headed out to the auditorium. I’ve written here before about how I cut my teeth shooting punk shows in Durban, but after all these years I still get a special kind of excitement when shooting live music.

I’ll have more to share from this shoot soon, but the sun’s fully set on me now and I need to get back to work. But before I do, I just want to say thank you to all of you that read these letters. There are more and more people sharing their thoughts and images through this medium, and it can get a bit overwhelming I think. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it, but I also recognize that a simple sub one day can place demands on your attention long into the future. So for you who chose and continues to choose to spend your time, at least a little of it, here with me, thank you. I’ll always do my best to treat that with the value it’s due.

Cheers,

Chris

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