Simple, classy and always telling a story with her eyes. I love it. Wonder if she would do a shoot with me sometime…..dream!

MY BIG FAT 2011

I’m not quite sure how I managed to fit all this into 2011, but the date on the camera never lies. Can I just pass on huge thanks to everyone who has helped me this year. With your help I have achieved what I set out to achieve, I reached my goals.

My New Year’s resolution is to build on all this and keep improving and keep learning and above all work with the very best people to pursue my passion for taking striking, memorable images.

To see more of these shoots, pop on over to my website HERE

katemoss:

Kate Moss for Longchamp, photographed by Alasdair McLellan.

This is what I mean! Loving it.

PSD MODEL SCHOOL #3 The eyes have it!

Look at the photo above. What grabs your attention about it? That’s three of Brightside Model Agency’s girls, in a photo I love! Shot with a very simple lighting setup in Sublime Hair Design. Hair by Lesley Moses and clothes by Totty Rocks - two of my favourite girls after they hand-made me a gorgeous shirt  (I’ll post a photo of yours truly sporting it when I get a chance!)

Now look at the photo in the post below, what draws your attention first?

OK, so Emily Jones - Superior Model Management - is wielding a knife, that would grab my attention pretty quickly. But really the first thing we all look at is her eyes! Same with the photo above. And in each case here they are all full of life, all telling a story.

When I have a shot that is perfect in every way, except d’oh!, the model has their eyes shut, then I need to transplant eyes from a similar shot, where she had them open. What I quickly realised was that the tiniest imperfection in my technique would be obvious a mile away, even when the photo is small on my mac screen. That taught me how sensitive we all are to each others eyes. And we’ve all been told to maintain eye contact with people when wanting to appear interested in what they are saying, right?

And who doesn’t know about Tyra Banks’ famous ‘sm-eyezing’ - smiling with your eyes.

I’m sure there are many more reasons that we love looking at eyes, but when I am working with models I always try to give them an emotion or character to play as that helps to think about how they should be feeling. But with or without that guidance, nothing kills a shot quicker than dead eyes, so really it is up to you models to come prepared to let a story burst through your eyes. Whenever you are practising posing, you need to make sure you get some powerful eye looks polished up as well.

Some of the most common things you will be asked to portray will be: anger, intensity, power/superiority, kindness, warmth, love, happiness, flirty, sexy.

It all fits in with the acting theme from my #1 class below. But next time you are on set, be prepared to work those eyes along with the rest of your body and give me a headache because there are too many good shots!

Here’s the gorgeous Emily Jones from Superior Models looking fabulous and scary at the same time. Guys, don’t cross her!

To see the rest of this shoot and find out why she is wielding a knife, check it out on my website here:

www.psdphotography.com

Here’s a taster of my latest shoot, which was published in Scotland on Sunday’s magazine Spectrum on 13th November, shot at Tigerlily on George St.

Ashleigh Bradshaw is looking stunning here and was a lovely model to work with.

Click here to see the rest of the shoot: HERE

Here’s a couple of shots from a recent test with two models from Colours Agency.

It’s nice to be back in the studio working towards a great look and that perfect shot. It’s always great fun trying out different lighting scenarios and working with models to try to capture something special.

If you are interested in booking a test shoot or model portfolio shoot, then check out my prices here:

PSD Photography Model Shoots

PSD MODEL SCHOOL #2 - Distance to Camera and perspective.

You are 3-dimensional, right? Unless you are a metaphysicist, in which case you are 11-dimensional and made of string!

Well, capturing the 3D you onto a 2-dimensional camera chip and then keeping it 2D for showing on screen or a print does funny things to how you look.

If I photographed you from above, you would look shorter. If I shot the snap from below, you would look taller. That’s why many fashion shots are taken from waist height or lower - to exaggerate the height of the model and to make them look more imposing. Of course, the number one rule of fashion photography is to say stuff the rules and do something different! But that doesn’t mean that a model can ignore what the photographer is doing.

Look at the two photographs above. First thing you look at is the eyes and face, right? But look at the shoulder next. In the image on the left it looks huge and prominent, in the one on the right it looks slim, and the shot is more striking overall. If a model aims her shoulder towards the camera, it definitely photographs better if that shoulder is dipped and looks too big if it is raised.

When models extend arms, elbows and hands towards the camera, they all appear bigger relative to the body, sometimes dominating the shot and making the files unusable. And if a model leans back in a shot her head can look very small in the photo relative to her body (especially if the photographer is shooting from low down) again rendering the shots unusable.

The trick is to understand that the camera ‘prefers’ everything to be on a 2-D plane, that’s the way that most shots look their best. So if the camera is at head height, and straight and level, then the model must imagine the area to model as being a flat pane of glass standing straight up from the ground where he/she is (like a big window), parallel to the camera. Anything in front of that pane will be bigger relative to the body and anything behind will be smaller. To keep all proportions correct, modelling should be to either side - not in front of or behind the window.

If the photographer is down low and shooting up at an angle, then that window to keep proportions correct tilts over forward to say parallel to the camera. So a model standing straight up will have feet and legs in front of the window (looking big) a waist exactly in line with the window (looking correctly proportioned) and a upper body and head behind the window (looking too small). Without performing any exciting and impossible levitation tricks, if the model leaned forward a little, then more of her upper body would keep in proportion.

So models, be aware of your position relative to the camera and watch out for it getting tilted backwards or forwards (or sideways) and think how do you keep parallel with it to keep in good proportions.

Other factors influence this, such as the type and focal length of the lens being used and whether or not the shot calls for a certain amount of exaggerated proportions for effect, but more about that another day!

Those orange shapes in the foreground are workers building the new Waverley station roof. BTW, Edinburgh is looking lovely today, basking in a low, golden sun.

Can you see the difference between the old, dirty panes in the foreground and the new clean ones at the back. How many years of dirt and grime is that? Answers on a postcard please!