Kira's Enchanted Forest

The inspiration for this shoot with Kira was from an Emily Soto behind the scenes shoot with ANTM
model, Jaclyn Poole.  I needed a concept that was interesting and also age appropriate and Emily Soto's work fits the description really nicely.   I was in the process of trying to create the look for the shoot when I saw shots of the head pieces from Paradise Flower Crowns (made by Avarie).  I thought they would make for the perfect center piece for the shoot so I contacted Avarie to see if she was interested on collaborating and also styling this shoot.   Thankfully she was as excited about the concept as I was.




I had originally planned to shoot this at Botanical gardens thinking I needed flowers to make the shots interesting.  So the day before the shoot I scouted the location.  It wasn't inspiring and I couldn't find a single location that I liked, so I postponed the shoot and went back to the drawing board.  I finally decided to shoot in Tom Moore's jungle using trees rather than flowers.  There was a certain part of the forest that opens up and is very bright,  I'd never shot at that particular spot but figured that would be my best opportunity to get the lighting that I wanted.  The shots require a strong backlight from the sun and at the same time the background to also be lit by the sun. 

I asked Christopher Vee if he was interested in doing the make up for the shoot and he loved the ethereal/whimsical concept and thankfully also had time to come to the shoot and do touch ups between each look and rain delay.

Photographer: Mike Jones
Model:  Kira Doran
Stylist:  Avarie Graham
Head Pieces: Paradise Flower Crowns (find them on Facebook)
MUA:  Christopher Vee
Assistant:  Chris Ingham

Technical Info:  The difficult part about this shoot was getting the model in the right location so that the rim and background met the requirements mentioned above.  Once that was achieved then it was just a matter of adding some fill from the Beauty Dish.

Canon 1D mk iV
70-200 F2.8 (+ 2 stop ND filter)
Einstein 640 & Beauty Dish

Post processing.  I did a quick edit of Kira's skin and then applied an action that I got from Emily Soto's website.  The action changes the skin tones and adds the cool flare/haze to the image.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

1/125 F2.8  90mm

1/125 F2.8 150mm

1/125 F2.8 150mm

1/125 F2.8 150mm

1/250 F2.8 70mm

1/250 F2.8 70mm

1/250 F2.8 70mm

1/250 F2.8 70mm

1/250 F2.8 75mm

 

 1/250 F2.8 70mm

1/250 F2.8 70mm

1/125 F2.8 120mm

1/125  F2.8 135mm

1/125 F2.8 125mm

1/125 F2.8 70mm

1/125 F2.8 125mm

1/125 F2.8 200mm

1/125 F2.8 85mm

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