Todays Shoot - Draven Star (NSFW)

Again - I was a day behind working on the photos.. but I caught up! so... yeay!

Draven is an amazing model! I generally do most of the posing and directions while I shoot a model, but Draven pretty much knew exactly what I was going for and how to portray it perfectly with very minimal if any instruction at all.

Its always awesome to work with someone who models for a living, and knows how to pose, because I always get something different then what I normally would - doing my own posing (as they pose differently, obviously).

Anyway - So we shot entirely in studio due to having very little time, with a lot to get done.

We started with a shot for my upcoming tattoo book, which is very flat lit - 2 3x4 boxes at 45 degrees angled in (front) - and a 1x4 soft box about 8=10 feet up pointing slightly downward for VERY flat lighting

She has awesome work - and I'm not sure if i want to use a side shot with the excellent Edward Sissorhands portrait, or if I want to use a back shot with her infamous leg corset and wings...

Here are two unedited photos from the tattoo shot






































After that started with the goth/fashion type of stuff - and if youve been following - same lighting - 2 3x4 softboxes - compact 300s (profoto) - split lighting - shot at F16-18 at a 125th - ISO125

On these, I did do some minor edit, some of them are desaturated about 15-25% - some of them have some minor dodge and burns with the opacity of the layer turned down to about 50% - some others are - as-shot





































































































































After shooting that, she pulled out this AWESOME little hat she wanted to shoot for this project, but I wanted to change up the lighting and shoot it a very specific way.

I broke out the boom and put the beauty dish facing straight down as high as it goes above her, but brought it about maybe 6 feet or so from the white background so it would bleed just enough light onto the paper to go midtone/grey with some light behind her as well (rather then having it go black or pure white)

























































Now, as you may have noticed, the fair Draven shares a name with the company Draven I have been working for - for a while, so I figured I would cross the two and put together something where she could rep some draven gear, which is kind of like... wearing her own name












































































After shooting all the gothy stuff we moved on to the traditional fine art stuff - and one thing i havent mentioned that i probably should have - this is shot on black velour - rather then on paper - the reason for that is to get a TRUE black - and velour seems to just suck up light - the same way i do to burritos.

Again, split lighting - i jump up the fstop to 22 - and place the model a few feet in front of the soft boxes to get the very selective lighting, again - trying to shoot strong contour lines.






































After shooting the fine art stuff we moved on to that top secret project I keep going on about but not posting anything on

howeeevveerrrr... MONDAY I will be posting... SOMEWHERE - all the info - and tons of examples from it. So keep your eyes open for that.

Working with Draven was AWESOME, I'm hoping i get to work with her again in the very near future.