Spring is Near

Brenden at the Palais de Tokyo.

Thank God spring is coming because it has been raining nonstop since I arrived in Paris. All my friends back home have been posting photos of them in their shorts outside. While I'm in thirty degree weather and raining. It has made me really miss home lately, but the sun has finally traveled to Paris. It has been so amazing outside lately, sixty to seventy degrees and sunny. You can't really ask for better weather that that. Since it has been so nice outside lately, I have definitely taken advantage of it and been shooting outside a lot. Not only has it given me an opportunity to enjoy the weather, but I also get to explore Paris and get some miles on my pedometer app.

Patricia at rue de Cremieux.

The first set I did was with a male model from America. He was traveling to Paris to watch his brother play basketball here. So why not have his agent find a photographer and get some shots done? Always working is the moto of today. We decided to meet at the Palais de Tokyo here in Paris. We both arrive and get to work. Brenden was a great model to work with. I didn't have to tell him much, he knew a lot of his looks which is always a good thing. We walked around to the nearby areas to get some different location shots. That's the one great thing about Paris, around every corner is another great location. We shot for about two hours, put a few miles on my app, and called it a day.

The Bastille shot with the one second exposure.

The next day I did another location shoot, this time with a model that I worked with before, Patricia. She messaged me saying that she's heading to London next week so of course I quickly set up another shoot with her. I wanted to do a night time shoot with some artificial lighting and a long exposure, she would be perfect for it. Thankfully she loved the idea and we always decided to do some daylight shots before it got dark. We met up and walked to rue de Cremieux, which is an absolute gem, if you ever go to Paris you should definitely check it out. As we walked down the street, I thought my GPS was wrong because nothing looked like the street I was trying to get to. We arrive at the last turn and bam! An entire street with every house different colors. It is definitely my favorite street in Paris. We shoot there for about an hour, two outfits, and every house that allowed photography of it.

Patricia in front of the restaraunt.

We then walk to Bastille, where we planned the night shots. We go down to the river and shoot a bit more while we wait for it to get dark. Eventually, we take a break and go sit at a restaurant until the sun goes down. Voila! The sun finally decides to go to bed and we get ready for the next shot. The main shot of this set is her standing in a dress in front of the roundabout with a one second exposure to get the car headlight trails. After about 30 shots we finally get the one and I instantly loved it. While we were there with everything we took a few more at different locations utilising the ambient light with the artificial light to freeze her. I remember one shot we shot in front of a restaurant and the waiter just stared at us the entire time, I know he was one shot away from telling us to leave. We got the shot though and left. Have you guys shot with ambient and flash at night? Let me know, and see you next week!

Paris Fashion Week with Nathanaelle Couture

Sorry for not posting last week. It has been a very hectic and exciting time. I had the pleasure of working with Nathanaelle Couture during Paris Fashion Week. They had a fashion show at VIP Room in Paris and then we did a location shoot at their amazing house.

One thing I miss about being a hairdresser is doing fashion shows and all the chaos that is included with them. We had 12 models, a full team of make-up artists, hairdressers, designers, and photographers all crammed into the back room. At first, everybody was taking their time and getting their things set up as usual. Then it's like somebody turned on the light switch and it ramped up to 88mph. Before I knew it there was mere minutes before the show started. Models were getting into their assigned order, hair and make-up were doing final touches to make sure everything was perfect, Nathanaelle looked over everybody to make sure everything was in order, and I headed upstairs to get ready for the show.

I hadn't been up there since we arrived when it was empty. I go through the door and there were loads of people sitting up there waiting for the show. Making my way through the crowd I finally get to my spot, ready for the show. It opens with Karin Soiref walking up to the catwalk and singing a live performance as the models came out one by one around her. Flashes were going off like strobe lights, music was fantastic, and the outfits were magnificent. It was really an honor to be there and experience this, especially seeing all the backstage work that goes into it. 

The next two days, we meet everybody at the house to start the location shots. It was really amazing how many cool shots we could get in the house. Nathanaelle has an incredible talent with styling scenes for the shots and adding little touches to the looks. It was a joy working with her and the incredible models. A huge shout out to the three models that worked with us over the next two days. They were troopers and incredible to shoot, they even endured the cold in dresses and didn't complain once. I'm excited to work with the models more while I'm here in Paris and working with Nathanaelle when I visit America. 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out Nathanaelle at nathanaellecouture.com

Models:

@samanthakellyofficial

@aliciadevoucoux

@ambre2504

MUA:

@mila_delaporte

 

20,000 Steps Through Versailles

Oleksii along the pond behind the Palace of Versailles.

This week has been quite an adventure, especially today. The reason this post is coming out later than normal is because I had spent all day with my good friends, Will and Rohan, in Versailles. Will is a fantastic editorial photographer with a unique classic style. He had a shoot today with two great models, Virgil and Oleksii, and invited me along. The trip itself is extremely affordable, only €7. 

I woke up early this morning and we all met at Will's place, then headed off to Notre Dame to catch the train to Versailles. We chatted during the hour or so the train took and the models were really amazing guys. Virgil is studying geology at university to one day study a form of astro science and Oleksii is a communication designer and hobbyist photographer.  We finally arrive at our destination and begin to soon-to-be trek around the Palace of Versailles and Gardens of Versailles. We reach the first location after walking a few miles to behind the palace to this open field with a giant pond and swans swimming about.

Will photographing Virgil and Oleksii.

Will assigned the garments to the models and they got changed while we looked for shots in the area. Will's style of clothing is literally of a different century and it's fantastic to see and shoot such a unique style. We start shooting, while getting attacked by nettles, and the sun is absolutely perfect. It's the first week in over a month the sun has been out and we were so lucky today it decided to come out for us. We keep a pretty fast pace as we shoot for several frames/poses in a location and then move about 100 feet along our route. As we head towards an archway Rohan spots a red armchair just in the middle of the woods to our left. Sometimes everything just works in your favor because it was an amazing scene with the most random chair. Honestly, I salute the person who lugged that chair out there because it weighed a good 100 lbs. 

Virgil on the chair in the woods.

After that magnificent discover we shoot there for a bit then head over to the archway, then the long walk to the gardens. As we enter the gardens there's a endless path with trees as far as the eye can see in a perfect line down each side. It was an absolute perfect day for this walk as we tread down the path passing families with their children and tourists taking photos. We find a secluded location in the vast lawn of grass so we can photograph without having people in our shot. We take a few dozen shots and our friend, the sun, decides he's done for the day. All in all we got all the shots we needed behind the palace and the gardens were icing on the cake because we could only shoot in the estate. We all have a brief talk and decide that after 20,000 steps we're all happy with the shots and all of us are famished. We head back to the train station and stop by a pub on the way to grab a drink and some food. It was an incredible day and hope you all had a fantastic week! See you next time.

 

William Waterworth: @willwaterworth

Rohan Harnal: @roahaar

Oleksii Neliubov: @oleksiineliubov

There's no 'I' in TEAM

This week was my first photo shoot with a French model. It's always difficult to build a new team and network when you're in a new area. Most teams consist of six basic categories: make-up artist (MUA), hairstylist, stylist, retoucher, model, and photographer. Yes, you can get away with a model and photographer, but everything runs more smoothly and the quality is usually better with a full team.

For any new photographers out there or photographers getting into any kind of photography involving people, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, portraiture, etc., I highly recommend building a team. The best thing that I've found for building a team is to find people building their portfolios. This is mainly due to the fact that they most likely won't require money as payment and will do time for product (TFP). Essentially that means the payment will be the photos themselves. 

In the beginning you can fulfill multiple roles, for example, I also retouch and do the hairstyling since I've been a hairstylist for Toni&Guy for seven years and have been heavily working with Photoshop for several years. This is fine for the beginning, but after a while, you will want to have different people for each role so you can focus on the photography or whichever your talent is. For instance, you'll be shooting and the hairstylist and MUA will be looking at their specific areas to let you know if either is off and needs adjusting.

You simply can't compare the technical ability to somebody who has trained in that specific field to somebody who does it on occasion. Take photography for example, ok anybody can click a shutter button, but what makes you better? It's the hundreds of hours that you have spent on honing your craft to allow you to focus on every little aspect. Knowing how to light the subject, using the light to achieve the desired result and to know exactly what equipment you will need to achieve that. Realizing the limitations of your equipment, like I knew the flash I was using had a fast enough flash duration the freeze the hair in motion. Having in depth knowledge of angles and focal length to know which will be more flattering and how to use them to your advantage. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but you can see how your average person taking snapshots just doesn't think about these things. This is why a team is important. 

A good resource, for me at least, has been using Model Mayhem to find team members. Feel free to add me there, URL will be at the bottom. You can browse for specific categories based on location and several other filters. This is where I found Diane for my photo shoot this week. It was a tad hard to find a model in Paris that spoke French, but with time I found Diane. Not only was she a model, but also a MUA and had clothes from a stylist from a previous photo shoot. Which meant we could fulfill all the roles for a proper team.

Go on out there, find a team, and set a shoot up! I would love to see some of you work, so feel free to e-mail me or tag me on IG or FB.

modelmayhem.com/justin-proctor

justinscottproctor@gmail.com

@justinproctor_

Diane Martin:

kaprice.book.fr/

@diane_martin_