2020 is here and I only have done few shoots in that time. Didn't make any new year promises or resolutions and if I did I would not share them anyways. I think it´s better to show results than talking about stuff that I wanna get done. There is a psychology to support it.
Yeah, anyway...this blog is not about that. I really wanna talk about shooting male models. I think this area is still really untapped by youtube and portrait communities. You can see a distinct difference by typing in "portrait photography" and mostly photos of lovely females pop up and no-no I don´t wanna talk about inequality....that here is not that kind of blog either. Just pointing out that there is untapped potential, even maybe a little challenge. So as I went through my 2019 shoots I noticed that there were only three shoots I solely did with a male model.
And a country, where I´m from it, is pretty hard to get males in front of the camera unless it is related to a task (commercial, show, sporting event, news) or wife/girlfriend pressured to get in that.
So here (Australia, Perth) I decided to tilt this balance little to get more male models in my portfolio. Met this amazing guy from the "Perth Model Mayhem" group. We have planned a shoot for a long time but couldn't set up a matching time schedule. So one day in 2020 he wrote to me that let´s do morning shoot. I was like F* yeah and we started looking up concepts, that´s right - WE. It is so good if the model works with you on ideas and visuals. Since it wasn't a commercial shoot we could play around with ideas whatever or however we wanted. Great, shoot was set up on Saturday morning at 0600 o'clock.
So here are a few notes from the shoot.
Good about this session
use of shadows (photo 2 & 3)
giving instruction related to the surrounding environment
choosing matching colors of outfit related to the environment
Not so good about this session
some of the photos have too much bokeh - background is too blurred out (photo 3)
lack of preparation - poses
lack of knowledge on how to guide male models on posing
For the next session
bring a reflector with me
being on location earlier (before sunrise)
gotta pay more attention to environment tones and color palette
Of course, I did my editing in Photoshop. I like maximum control that Photoshop provides. For tonal range, I did Hue Mapping and determined colors on the photos. I mostly had to deal with warmer analogous colors so I could use the matching color palette and give little more persona to photos. I aimed more bronze/gold look for skin and brought the environment on the same range. With in-water shots, I pushed a complementary color scheme, looks kinda teal & orange.
It was extremely easy to work with this model. This here is a great person and also a pro-model who is seeking personal development and growth. Shout out to Luke Whyman. And of course, I had to capture some moments between set up scenes.
