Beauty and the Beast

The sun sank. The tempest rolled in. The burnt forest stood motionless. And out came the Beauty… then the Beast jewelry series. The moment had arrived and what a perfect evening for it. I have started on the photoshoot for my WearBeast  pieces – featuring the lovely model Miss Adoree. I am pretty sure this girl will be famous one day – she makes her job look easy and she nails the poses. It is extremely important to make a shot believable to your audience. By this I mean you should follow a few simple ground rules:

1. Pick a theme that demonstrates a mood you want to convey in your images. This will be the basis for every decision you make about the shoot.

2. Stick with that theme as you choose your model, clothing, makeup, hair, location, time of day to shoot, exposure settings, poses, choosing the final selected shots, and finally the editing techniques to use.
That might seem like a lot of effort for a simple shoot, but if you at least try to coordinate a few of those items together – your shoot will start to look more original and take on a look that you essentially created.

When I set up this shoot, I planned out quite a few of those elements according to the theme of Dark, Twisted, Mysterious. I chose the model, location, clothing, time of day, exposure, poses and editing techniques. One thing you can’t plan for is the weather. I originally wanted shots with a very low and direct sunlight just before it would set. However, by 3pm it had clouded over and the wind picked up. In retrospect this worked to our advantage and actually added another convincing element to the shoot. Wind can be a blessing in disguise and the clouds worked to darken the background and diffuse the light on Adoree. The rain however, is another story.

What you see here is a quickie shoot thought out to see what I might need to plan for if I wanted to create an even larger production with multiple women. It will probably take a month to complete this series, then I can start on my jewelry catalog!