I have photographed a lot of interesting things during my photographic journey and have experimented as much as I can with a broad range of genres. Street photography, portraits and pets, food and product photography, landscape and travel and even parties and events. Yes, I am just that good! Well, I said I have experimented in many genres. Not mastered many if any at all. But I try. Late last week I was fortunate enough to be involved in a model shoot with a real live model. You may recall me talking about my mate The ORP (Overrated Photographer) and how we catch up from time to time to do a shoot or just talk shop. He is a lot like me and has dabbled in all sorts of photography. But he has had a lot more experience in model shoots. Anyway, he organised the model and the location.  Joining us was our mate Adam who works in the photographic community and brought an interesting new toy to play with. 

Let’s talk about the model.  The model was a 15-year-old girl named Natalie. At first, I was shocked by her age, having a teenage daughter of my own, but then realised that in the modelling industry people start out pretty young.  She was joined by her mother who helped give her direction from the sidelines and also assisted with costume changes. Natalie was great and apparently had already done a fair bit of modelling and photo shoots. She knew what poses worked best for her and how to play with her posture and look towards the camera. We were located at an abandoned train line in Port Melbourne and the tracks were pretty rough with large chunks of blue stone, steel rails and of course timber sleepers. But to her credit, Natalie was barefoot most of the time and didn’t complain at all. During the one and half hour shoot, she made two costume changes and was very professional but fun.  I was really impressed.

Let’s talk about the ORP. As I mentioned he organised the shoot as he has had some experience with this kind of work before. I cannot recall if he has used the location before but it was well planned out. There is an abandoned rail line in Port Melbourne just near the Westgate Freeway and Bridge. He organised the shoot for 6:30pm to make the most of the golden hour of sunset and as the track ran east to west it was ideal to make the most of that kind of lighting. I mentioned in my previous blogs that The Orp had foolishly moved from Fujifilm to Sony in recent months. He was shooting with his Sony A7III. He also had a flash trigger mounted to his camera.  This was synced to his two Godox AD200’s. These were both mounted in a Magmod softbox. More on that later. As the sun was behind the model, The ORP was using the flash to ‘beat the sun’ and ensure that enough light fell on her. He will no doubt post something on his site so keep an eye on it here. His preview images looks first class. 

Let’s talk about Adam. Turns out that Adam and I are neighbours. Adam is from a business called radbitz.com.  Radbitz is a distributor for premium photographic equipment in Australia and New Zealand. They have some pretty neat gear including Laowa lenses, Miggo bags and Magmod lighting accessories. Adam was kind enough to bring a pre-production release of the upcoming Magmod softbox kit. This was one of only five available worldwide so we felt pretty special. The softbox was able to fit both of the Godox AD200 flashes in it securely and provided a concentrated and controllable amount of light.  Adam was also good enough to hold the light box up rather than rely on a light stand. He managed pretty well too. It was a well designed and solidly constructed piece of kit. The Orp was the only one that was able to use the flash as my trigger was not working properly. 

Let’s talk about me. Like most people, other than the narcissists, I often suffer from imposter syndrome. In a situation and I feel like a fraud. That kind of thing. Turning up to this shoot I felt very nervous as it was my first model shoot.  But I followed the lead of The ORP and thankfully Natalie was very natural and needed very little direction. Adam, The ORP and I all get on very well and have a similar sense of humour so the mood was light and fun.  As a result, despite not being able to get the flash to work, I had a really good time and quickly felt confident in taking shots and also giving Natalie directions.  I was really happy with the images that I have captured and have since given Natalie a range of images I shot on the night.  I have also included in this blog some of the behind the scenes images that I captured.  I love capturing the candid stuff that goes on with these kinds of events. 

I shot all of my images with the Fujifilm X-T3.  The new eye detect on this camera is fantastic and worked exceptionally well with this shoot. I also used the Fujifilm XF50mmF2, XF23mmF2 and borrowed the XF90mmF2 from The Orp for a few shots.  After the shoot, we chatted with Natalie and her mum and The ORP outlined what would happen with her images, what we would post, etc.  They left. The ORP was flying to Fiji the next morning so he set off. Turns out…Adam and I both like Asahi beer and Pepperoni Pizza! You can figure out the rest. Happy shooting.