Location Shoot: Variety

Happy Monday!

This week I wanted to talk about working on location. I recently did a two hour location shoot with a photographer called Michael Szabo. I've shot with Mick a lot over the years, but recently we had out first shoot together since I had my daughter. It was lovely to get a shoot in and catch up. It was also lovely to find out that we still have whatever it is that makes us get great images when we work together!

As well as sharing images from this shoot with you all, I wanted to write this post to highlight how easy it is to get a variety of different images in a short space of time when working on location. I've always said that I could visit the same location every day for a year and still be getting new images at the end of it. That's the beauty of working on location: the location changes year round depending on the seasons, but also, you change as a model and as a photographer. You age, you learn, your style develops and evolves. Nothing stays the same for very long. So when I get asked if I get bored doing the same thing all the time, the answer is no. Because I'm not doing the same thing all the time since nothing stays the same.

I'm sure that if me and Mick went to the same location again soon, we would get images that are vastly different to the ones we got on that day. Take a look at these images to see the variety we got in just two hours together. In this post, I will also show you images that Mick edited and some that I edited. This also shows variety, as our editing styles are very different. Even though he is responsible for the photography, how I chose to edit them was different. Photography is amazing.

So let's take a look at some images.

1: Smoke

This wasn't the first thing we did but it was the coolest, so i'll start with this. Mick mentioned he had smoke bombs in his car, so of course I insisted we used them. You don't get long to get the shots when you're using smoke bombs, so you have to be quick! It's always a laugh and sometimes you get some good images out of it. On the left is the image that Mick edited and on the right was edited by me. I love how the light cuts through the smoke, across the frame of the door on these images. I find that smoke just adds a bit of something extra to an art nude image. I chose to keep my image in colour here, whereas Mick chose to convert his to black and white.

2: Hat

We did some images with a hat that Mick had brought along with some jewellery. This was the first thing we shot when we arrived at the location and was actually shot against a gate that faced onto a road, so we had to be really careful shooting here as occasionally cars would drive past. It was also challenging as the sun was behind me and we were using a reflector to bounce light back into my face. That was difficult considering it was blinding me and I was trying not to squint.

We did manage to get a few good images from this though, and I'm quite happy with the result, especially as it's quite different to the sort of thing I usually shoot (I'm categorically NOT a hat person!). Mick's colour edit is on the left, and my black and white one is on the right. I decided to convert mine to black and white as I felt it added a sort of timelessness to it.

3: Woods

After we had explored the first bit of the location, we got back in the car and drove a little further up the road to a woodland. We didn't spend very long there, but we got some amazing images. The light was hard to work with as there was a lot of cover from the leaves, but where the light that was coming through them was very bright. It cast some harsh shadows, which meant that a lot of wandering around was required to find places that would be good to pose in. I love this part of location work, because it really makes you think about what you want to capture and how to capture it!

First, here is an image that Mick edited. His edit is a million times better than mine, as I don't have as much experience editing images with such difficult lighting. He did a fantastic job here, and I absolutely adore the result!

Here are a few of my attempts at editing these pictures. Woodland nudes are one of my favourite things to shoot, but editing them was so difficult. This is what I ended up with from having a play around and I'm really happy with my results, I hope you like them too!

4: Wheat

At the first part of our shoot, there was a wheat field that Mick really wanted to shoot in. He had an idea for a shot where all you could see behind me was the wheat. We struggled to shoot it that way because the field was on a hill and the light was very bright (it was also super hot and very sweaty, which made the modelling difficult too!)

We spent ages wandering around the field trying to get a good angle, and I could tell he wasn't happy with what he was getting. Although we didn't achieve the look that he was going for, when I received the edits I loved them and actually think I'm glad the sky was there.

And here is one I edited from that set: I had to crouch down for this shot, and it wasn't overly comfortable!

5: Ivy

This set is my favourite from this shoot. I love how feminine they are, almost like a fairytale. The building does not look as nice as that in real life, and it just goes to show what you can capture when you have two good, creative minds working together. There were colour versions of these that Mick sent me, but I am just obsessed with the black and white versions.

And here is another one from Mick on the left, and one from me on the right. These were shot not too far from that window in two different outfits (I say outfits, but it's fashion nude, so almost outfits). Again, it's adding variety using various items of clothing.

6: Anonymous

And last, but not least, here is a bonus image taken where we let off the smoke bomb. It is using the same hat from our first set, but in a completely different image. The same prop used in a portrait can get a shot that is completely different if you do a full length. I absolutely love this image, and we shot something similar years ago. It was fun to have an image that is a throwback, especially as this was our first shoot together for a while.

And that's it from me this week. I just wanted to write this post to show you that you don't need to shoot all day to get a wide variety of shots for your portfolio. Me and Mick work well together and we've worked together a lot over the years. It's easy to nail the shots quickly when you have a good working relationship, but that doesn't mean you can't achieve this with someone new: it's just about knowing what to look for in a location and making sure you have lots of options in terms of clothing and props (or smoke bombs!) and being willing to experiment and play around while you're there. It's also important to know when to move on if something isn't working and try something else.

I hope that this post has inspired you and helped you to think a bit more deeply about how you can use your time more effectively on shorter shoots. Let me know in the comments which one was your favourite.

Have you ever had a short shoot and managed to get such variety? How did you do it? Did it just happen or did you plan it? How did you use props and outfit changes to achieve variety?

I just want to say a quick thank you to Mick Szabo for a fun shoot, and thank you for letting me have a play around with some of the images. I had a lot of fun editing them and writing this post about them too!

I hope that you've enjoyed looking through these images, and I hope you have an amazing week ahead of you.

Misuzu <3