ayla garde
a few weeks ago my friend K asked if i'd be interested in shooting Ayla with him. she is heading off to NYC to continue her career in advertising (we all used to work together) and to develop a career as a jazz singer - she has an amazing voice!
the brief was to try a capture a number of different looks inspired by jazz through the ages. we went for a bunch of looks from the 20's all the way through to something more modern.
the shoot was a mix of indoor and outdoor. inside we used mainly a 1 or 2 light setup with a reflector for fill. we had brought along some portable lighting to get the strobes happening outside but realised in the end that natural light and reflectors would be fine.
deep octa, top left of frame with a silver reflector for fill
we decided that we'd leave the planned diner shot till later cause we needed to make sure we caught the setting sun before it was too late. so we headed off up behind the Palisades hotel for a few golden hour snaps.
my fave of those shots is the one below. a real challenge shooting into the sun with no hood. it was leaking/blowing out bigtime but i knew that shooting in RAW on the D800, i'd be able to pull back the levels and correct for the yellows. I think i got it just about right.
gold reflector for fill bottom left. had to squash the yellows and pull up the blacks to correct
we went on to grab a few more 30's and 40's styled shots with the great architecture around the rocks. love the variety of locations and the atmosphere around here. hope the Bangaroo development doesn't kill it.
natural light. a little VSCO film action added
the last set of shots were back at the diner. going for a more 60s feel with these. we were originally going to use the beauty dish but realised that waiting for sundown would allow for the overhead pendant lights to do their thing. probably need to pull back on the yellows a bit... (edit: have done now and it looks much better)
overhead lighting, shot from outside the diner to get the window reflections
overall a really fun shoot. k got a bunch of other photos and we were all pretty happy with the results. Ayla seemed pleased with the work so it was a win-win :) check out a few more in the people gallery and here
I also shot a couple of rolls on the Hasselblad so fingers crossed those turn out well when i get the rolls developed