Zachary Street: Featuring Emma Bugg

I met Zach at a Savage Media production (Butcher’s Blossom) in 2009. I was helping out in wardrobe at the time. In the last year, we’ve come across each other a few more times on various sets and at the last one, he mentioned a potential modelling portfolio being put together.

A few weeks later, he messaged me about this modelling portfolio and we decided to get together in November to get it started.

Important note: I met Zach’s girlfriend, Emma Bugg at the last film he was working on. She is also of the acting persuasion and is, frankly, stunningly beautiful. So I told Zach to bring her along to spice his portfolio up a bit with a girl here and there. :D

So Zach and Emma came down to Basingstoke on the train on the Sunday morning and theybrought so many clothes. Well, Zach has brought so many clothes. Approximately one million suits, maybe two. How many waistcoats does this boy own? I think we will never know. Also, major hat fanatic. So many hats.

We started off nice and easy. Black Emporio Armani shirt on white, with two soft-boxes. Came out all nice. He’s a natural. You can tell he practises his model-face in the mirror. :D

See.

Emma meanwhile, was set up on the sofa with her coursework, reading up on some stuff. Well, I couldn’t have that. That is way too much good behaviour!? So I interrupted her (of course) and got her into the dresses she had brought with her. Which were awesome.

We went with Emma in black first with Zach in his grey suit. Whit whoo. Don’t they look gorgeous, dahling?

And don't you just love that hair colour!?

And then Zach looking all handsome in black and Emma looking beautiful with her cream dress complete with massive vintage bow. We were fans of the bow.

Yay bow!

OK, so next we did a more rock scene look. Dressed them all in jangly chain-like accessories and dog tags and the like and then, we took it outside. My first experience with using studio lights outside (Squee! How exciting!) And here’s what we came up with this one:

I love this one SO much.

And this one's not bad either.

We also took a couple of these inside and played around with those ol’ gel filters again.

I started off with red…

… which came out pink:

Best image from that set. XD

So then we went blue instead (the old favourite). Nice and moody.

A nice bit of contrast between the orange-red hair and Zach's blue cheek!

Right then. Well, it was going to happen eventually. Next, Zach took all his clothes off.

We (I mean to say, Zach and a very keen Emma) oiled him up a treat with an oil based moisturiser. And then I (and I do mean I, this time) sprayed him all over with water.

Pa-choo! Pa-choo! Got you.

This is what happens next:

Note how his ‘model-face’ has become much more intense now he’s finally got  to take his clothes off...

  

Such an intense look, Mr Street!

(My favourite. Look at that lighting! Phwoar!)

... And there's that old Tungsten setting again. :D

Needless to say, this was a wicked shoot and I had a great time with Zach and Emma.

Sorry Ladies, this one belongs to Miss Bugg and I can't see that changing as they're quite possibly the most loved up couple in the world but expect to see more from Zach again early next year!

Toodle-pip!

Mary Luke: Wardrobe Extraordinnaire

Mary is a long-term friend of mine from my college days.

We spoke recently about shooting and, being busy bunnies, we arranged them over two evenings rather than over the weekend.

Evening 1: Wednesday 19^th October, 7pm

Mary brought a small portion of her wardrobe to my house. This ‘small portion’ FILLED my house. There was the most MASSIVE suitcase I have ever seen in my entire life, being carried in by Mary (who is about the 3^rd of the size of said suitcase), a massive shoulder bag heaving with shoes, and then a further bag of shoes. And another box of shoes.

Now of course, this was totally my fault. As Mary said (repeatedly) “you didn’t specify!”. I had said, bring as much as you can carry. Fill a suitcase. Literally, as much as you can. My mistake. Sorry Mary. I didn’t realise that you owned one of every outfit ever made and that you happened to have a suitcase the size of the UK.

We got set up, chatting for a while and got Mary made up and into outfit one:

 

We had lots of awesome clothes to choose from. There were corsets and dresses and tights and trousers, chokers and shoes, the list goes on!


Outfit two was a bit more lacy and gothic and this was our best image:

And then, of course, because she can’t envisage a shoot now without her presence, Ceri “Look At Me” Williams turned up! Apparently, Mary invited her. A likely story indeed… >_>

And so Mary and I tried to carry on uninterrupted, which of course, was now proving difficult with Ceri jumping in front of the camera at every given opportunity and stomping her feet when she couldn’t have her own way.

She’s going to hate me when she reads this but it’s all true, look!:

Still, regardless of our unexpected Diva waltzing in and making us laugh uncontrollably, Mary and I got a good few shots to use from evening 1.


Here was outfit three. A Religion silver dress:

Then there was the black red and blue corset which was AWESOME:

The purple netted top, which was my personal favourite:

(Beware: too smexy for the naked eye.)

... and then there was actual nudity. Wa-hey!

We ended on that happy note. :)

Evening 2: Thursday 20^th October, 7pm

Disaster struck!

Unfortunately, everything went wrong on Evening 2. My car was at the garage being fixed and so I had got the train to work. Some pilchards on the M3 then decided to have a bit of a pile up and Basingstoke was a mess. I got out of work and got the train back to Basingstoke. I was picked up by Martin and then by the time we had fought through the traffic back to the garage, the service desk wasn’t open and so I couldn’t get my car. If I had got to the car, the shoot would have started very late anyway, but I was miffed.

Not as miffed as Mary must have been though as she had not got my messages due to driving to Farnborough to meet me there and got them when she arrived. Oh dear. Worse still… Mary had gotten me a present. And it was amazing (though I didn’t know that at the time). O_o


I obviously apologised profusely until her ears bled and we rescheduled Evening 2 to the following Tuesday. It did mean that I could start on the edits from Evening 1, though.

Evening 2B: Tuesday 25^th October, 7pm

Evening 2 was epic. I love the whole thing.


We started off punk-rock with big 80's hair and tassly bits. :D

And then we moved onto this pink gangster outfit that was, quite frankly, amazing!

Ain't she a character!?

 

And a beauty.

I love those. :D 

We did get a variety this time again with a lot of awesome outfits and things.


We had the awesome black lace parasol and dress:

This one is quite funny because, for those of you who don't know, Mary is pretty darn short (approximately 2ft tall ;D). For this one, as the skirt was so long, we stood her up on an upturned bin to get some height on the girl! Ha ha. I think it looked pretty cool though actually:

We had this wicked leather outfit:

Phwoar.

*Jelly Legs*

And then finally, we couldn't resist the inevitable Lolita outfit opportunity.

For those who don't know Mary, as I said, she's a bit of a short arse (sorry Mary, please don't bite my ankles), she's also obviously into her gothic stylings, however, she's also a fan of the ol' Lolita styling which she can really, truly get away with incredibly well due to her diddiness. That is a word. I just wrote it in the dictionary myself.

Now I have this giant teddy bear, Mister Ted (is there no end to my genius) that I won at Chessington (I know, is there anything I can't do, right?) and so with Mary literally looking like a little gothic doll and Mister Ted being as oversized as Mary is undersized... what a fookin' pair they made!

Observe:

HOW COOL IS THAT!?

As my avid fan, Adam Gould says, she looks like a little borrower! Awww. Can we keep her?

Anyways, amongst other things, Mary is also interested in Cosplay (eurgh) as is Ceri and so there may be some of that soon *shudder*.

Aside from that, doing these images in the evening kind of limited us to the studio due to lack of lighting but all those who would like to see more gothic Mary images on location, say 'aye'!

Must... buy... portable... battery... pack... for... lights...

... so... expensive...

*cries forever*

Goodnight Kids!

Kiera Gould: Less Angus, More Kiera

Ok, so following on from my previous post...

Kiera (killing soon in a town near you) came for a longer studio shoot on Saturday 22nd October.


We'd planned to work with each other again once I had obtained my own studio kit, which of course I have.

Kiera turned up with lots of bits and bobs to use, such as some really nice maroon velvet drapes, peacock feathers, most cleverly obtained for a shocking price of 15 'bob' by Bill (Billiam) Thomas.

We started out soft and simple and got a range of beautiful, yet natural, Kieraful headshots such as this:

And this (Ooh! Peacock Feathers!? Thanks Bill!):

And these!:

These last two achieved using a very bright but softened backlight, and a soft main light.

Next up we went for a rocky look. Kiera donned some very pink eyeshadow and we accessorised the bejesus out of her using all the chains, gloves, netted clothing and cuffs, etc, that I could find in the time it took her to get made up. Kiera's hair was sprayed forward into a stylish, yet relaxed quiff and off we went.

I like this one. It's not a typical composition but I like it anyway. So 'ner, ner'. :p

I am aware that these two are incredibly similar but I am yet to decide on my favourite of the two...

... I think it's that right one.

...Maybe.

Anyway, moving on. Next we stuck up a maroon velvet backdrop (as provided by Kiera) and got into a classy ladylike outfit. The top being a really lovely pink corset top that I had failed to take a good picture of when I was first starting out in my very early photography testing days. Every picture blurry, damn it! But I have since learned a lot about shutter speed. *pat pat* Well done Chloe.

Besides, I got another go at it. :D

Right, next I wanted to have a go with a blue gel filter. Kiera changed into a pair of teeny tiny shorts and wrapped her front with a teeny tiny piece of grey fabric.

So Robin, you'll be pleased to know, your sister was not completely naked. Sorry to everyone else for that information. I did try really hard.

I struggled around a bit with this next one having never used a gel filter before. I seemed to think when setting this up that I wanted the blue light to hit Kiera's face. Whilst I fumbled around with this for a bit trying it at different angles, and with the other light on and off, and facing the other light away but pinging it back with a reflector, and facing the same way as the filtered light, etc etc (seriously, everything but!) I eventually brought the blue light up from the back and had the main light hitting Kiera from the front.

And it looked SO much better and less like I'd turned Kiera into a Smurf.

Tempted to Photoshop Kiera as a smurf anyway for comic effect... hmm... I'd probably die horribly. Will try that on a less deadly subject some other time. *notes down*

Right then. Last set. I loved it.

Like with Marlyn's corsetted shoot, I switched to the Tungsten setting for my white balance and we just got so many awesome shots!

So, lucky you! You get to look at a few of these. :D

That cheekbone is a killer. :o

 

This outfit in fact was so awesome, I wore it that night to Martin's halloween work do'. I hitched the front of the skirt right up and put on some fishnet stockings & suspenders, some fake blood and pasty white make-up and went as a bride of Count Dracula. One! Two! Ah ah ahhh!!!

Speaking of which, I 'forgot' to give that outfit back...

Moving swiftly on... Kiera's coming for some extreme beauty shots* next time, possibly in January? So watch this space.

* Extreme beauty shots are unfortunately not beauty shots taken whilst doing something extreme, such as bungee jumping, hang-gliding, parachuting, etc but it's certainly worth thinking about and Kiera's certainly the girl for the job...