Technique 22 Out of the box PN reader Gill McGowan had the notion of photographing a male model, but needed inspiration first – and that she got from the phone book. This is her story
Photography News Issue 43 absolutephoto.com
Words by Gill McGowan
Shooting an experienced model in an original manner can be challenging. They’re likely to have a good portfolio already; this is probably what attracted your attention in the first place. So how are you going to make your images stand out? Such was my dilemma in shooting a male model. I met Phil Bruce briefly at an event a couple of years ago, and watched his portfolio grow with some excellent fitness and fashion images, genres his physique is well suited to. I was interested in shooting with him, but didn’t want to do so until I felt I could bring something different to the table. Inspiration came in the form of a chance comment from a friend on how phone books are now so thin that she could tear one in half herself. So, I thought, what if the muscular Phil could be photographed trying and failing to rip one in half – a parody of the classic strongman demonstrating
his strength. This led to the idea of a humour-based shoot. I mapped out a few concepts and pitched them to Phil, who loved this slant on a shoot. The next issue was where to shoot. There are hire studios aplenty to be had, but I have my own portable lighting, a pair of Elinchrom Quadra Rangers with 100cm square Rotalux softboxes, so it was more about getting a good working space than the lighting equipment. I settled on a small local theatre with rooms for hire. Having agreed a date with Phil, I spent the intervening period gathering props and liaising with Phil over what he was comfortable with. Thankfully he’s not shy, and is up for a laugh! Come the day I packed my car with lighting equipment, the props, myCanonEOS 5DMark III together with Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 II and 70-200mm f/2.8 II lenses. I’d booked a decent-sized room with a small stage, where most of the images were taken. Phil and I
got to know each other in our first face-to-face conversation whilst I set up the lights and did tests. He lit up as I suggested a series of shots with doughnuts, starting with capturing the fitness guru craving the sugarcoated goodness, leading into doughnut smash shots. For a male model, mean and moody is a staple request, and so having a bit of funwith the shoot was refreshing for him. Most images were taken with a single light set-up. I set the Canon EOS 5D Mark III to the recommended sync speed of 1/160sec, with apertures around f/5.6-6.3. During the shoot the lighting was fine-tuned by adjusting power output, altering light to subject distance and the angle of the light in relation to Phil. It’s useful to have someone on hand to make these adjustments for you so as not to disturb the flow of the shoot; however, no voice-activated light stand had volunteered for the job, so I had to do everything myself. Thankfully the Quadra and its power pack were quite close to me whilst shooting so it was easy enough to change settings. I find in a concept shoot that unscheduled shots can take you by surprise and you have to modify your approach. Such was the case with the doughnut series. In the doughnut smash, the doughnuts did not dispatch themselves with the grace and distance I had envisaged. However, the force
applied to try to achieve that translated to what appeared to be anger in Phil, which had a mood all of its own and made for good pictures. Never be afraid to stray slightly from the original concept, but do keep a tight control of your use of time so as not to miss the shots you’ve planned. I moved onto the original concept of the phone book rip. Phil could have torn it apart easily, but first I wanted shots of him failing to do so. This proved to be challenging in terms of angles because the phone book was so thin and I didn’t want that to show too obviously. After exploring various angles I got what I wanted, then asked Phil to rip the book in two, which he did easily. I got the shot: which is just as well, as I didn’t have a spare. We moved on to shots with a disappointingly deflated blow- up dumb-bell and a bare chested Santa padding out his shorts with seasonal socks. This series was an afterthought, using props gathered in the minutes before I left home. For my last shot I wanted to capture the concept of thinking outside the box, and, true to concept, improvised to achieve this. I envisaged Phil looking in awe at light emerging from a box, and so I used an old perfume box which opened like a book and was big enough to accommodate the tiny Quadra flash head. Putting this idea into effect proved challenging, and I nearly blinded poor Phil in test shots.
Above and below Shots fromGill’s doughnuts series, starting with Phil trying to resist the treats and ending with him smashing them. Right Phil opens a box containing a very small ElinchromQuadra flash head, to symbolise the concept of thinking outside the box.
Powered by FlippingBook