Alice Katz

It’s always a wonderful and exciting thing to find a model with whom you gel Immediately, and with whom you know you have the prospect of many more productive collaborations in the future. Alice is one such model. I think it’s fair to say that our first shoot went off in directions that neither of us were planning for, and has given us some wonderful images that we’ve both very happy with and very proud of. Before I get into the shoot, a little background.

Back in Spring, I posted on Purpleport for a tf casting, looking to use up studio time that I’d amassed, and which I was going to lose. One of the first to reply was Alice, who’s based in the midlands. For various reasons, it took us quite a while to find a day that we’d both be able to shoot, before we could eventually sort a day in August that we were both free.

We got to exchanging moodboards and image ideas, and pretty soon a plan was coming together.

So we had our reference images sorted, and we’d settled on a date for the shoot. As ever with planning shoots longer term, you find that they seem ages away for a long time, and then all of a sudden they’re upon you, and it’s time to get in gear.

We met in central London, and the taxi ride to the studio was a chance to chat in more detail ahead of the shoot, and so on arrival at the studio, we were pretty much straight into the shoot. Alice and I pretty much clicked from the get go, which made the shoot run smoothly, and super-productively. As I mentioned earlier, whilst we took inspiration from our moodboard images, we very quickly went off on tangents, heading off in a number of directions. I’m particularly pleased with the ‘sweater’ pictures. Alice arrived wearing the sweater, and whilst it wasn’t intended to be part of the shoot, it was pretty soon commandeered. It definitely played a big part in the shoot.

I think we’re both more than happy with the quality and nature of the images we’ve come away with on this first shoot. I should mention Alice’s particular ability as a make up artist as well-Alice did her own hair and makeup to a professional level, for sure, and it could not have been better or more suited to the shoot.

Another thing I should mention is the quality of Alice’s communications. I know from chatting to various models that they will also read between the lines on comms, to get a sense of the personality of the photographer, but certainly, I find that the tone and manner of comms to be a not perfect, but usually pretty good way, to get an idea if you and your model will gel on the day. Anyway, Alice’s comms were just excellent-well written, comprehensive, clear, and it was obvious to me that Alice was going to be someone who I’d enjoy shooting with. Sure enough, that was more than bore out on the day. (And, no txtspk, which is always a good thing in my eyes-but then, I’m old….)

In short, I’d recommend that any photographer who has the chance should work with Alice as soon as they get the chance to do so. Me? I’m already planning the next shoot, and the one after that, and the one after that….

Lighting: Pretty much all of the images were shot with one light. Peter Coulson is a photographer who’s work I enjoy, and he’s a photographer who tends to favour a single light for all of his work, studio or non studio. Whilst my photographic style is very different from his (most of the time, anyway…) , I think he’s pretty persuasive. Like most photographers, when I first had access to a studio with many lights, I saw it as my duty to use All Of Them In Every Shot. I’ve chilled out a little since then. And whilst I’m not averse to using more lights, a lot of the time less is definitely more. The modifiers varied based on the shot-gridded beauty dish, softbox, gridded softbox, ect.