this saturday night, i took a break from the nightlife scene and spent some time shooting something a little different. although i love the energy to be found at live shows, i’ve felt the need to shoot something different from the norm. i’ve actually cut back quite a bit on the events, parties, etc. so that i can focus on other genres.

one of these genres includes fashion. recently i was hired by friend and local designer matt breuning to photograph a few looks that he’s cooked up over the past few months. while i do shoot fashion professionally, normally i shy away from shooting that “bubblegum” sort of look….perfect lighting, heavy post production, and excessive attention to detail are often extraneous distractions that obstruct a “good” photograph, in my opinion. artificial, heavily produced fashion photography strays too far from reality for my taste and often become very misrepresentative of reality.

that isn’t to say that i can’t shoot those kinds of images. half of the shoot took place in that famous oft-used alleyway off of chaplain lane. instead of shooting down the alleyway, as most people do, i setup against the doors and walls of the alley. its actually a great place to shoot in because there are a lot of different kinds of doors and windows, and the varied colors and textures let you choose an appropriate setting to accentuate the look you’re capturing. the other half of the shoot was in kaimuki, its actually hard to find a relatively accessible location that has overgrown grass, and of course the skyline and lighting there was also an amazing setting for some fashion. the tall grass images were my favorite, it let me capture a sort of “natural history museum exhibit” look. rad.

the style for a few of the looks drew heavily on the 80s. to capture that 80s high school senior portrait steez we had the models rocking frizzy perm-a-look hair and i backlit them with a bare strobe to blow out the frizz. otherwise lighting was accomplished with an on-camera 580EX II bounced off a reflector, an umbrella-d 580EX II, a ring flash, and a strategically placed 580EX II that was either barndoored, snooted, or bounced. this was a straight up strobist shoot, and all the lighting for this shoot packed up into a full gear bag’s worth of stuff. everything on the strobes was dialed in manually, including aperture, ISO, and shutter speed on the camera.

it was a fun shoot to do from a technical standpoint because of all of the different lighting looks i got to employ. also, the models were a joy to work with (thanks justine and tia). also, big thanks to my assistants for the night, chris and mary, who helped hold lighting, run test images, and more!

enjoy.

-a

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