I wanted to pull off a shot where the performer was being pulled apart / suspended on the pole by fabric, obviously not something you can do in one take so going in to this I was planning it out as a composite.

Lauren Red kindly obliged to be the model, and the sheer physical endurance of this lady cannot be understated. I think on the final count we hit somewhere near 380 exposures, which meant poor Lauren had to pull off the move somewhere between 100-150 times. An absolute trooper and a testament to the sheer amount of training that these performers do.

The camera had to be positioned on a tripod to enable easier compositing, but it was essential either way as I had to position and manipulate the silks on my own up a stepladder, triggering the camera with a wireless release clenched between my teeth. Not the most glamourous execution but it got the job done!

Returning home to stitch together the composite, it quickly became clear that being unable to see the silks whilst shooting from the camera perspective was a genuine impediment, and the result was a lot more two dimensional than I’d originally envisaged.

I will be returning to the concept at some point, but this time armed with an assistant (Or two) to help waft silks around the place whilst I frame up and shoot from behind the camera!

I arrived at flight and grabbed some behind the scenes shots of the prep while Kelly was hard at work, then set up to shoot the lyra  with Lauren in it. So far, so normal. We shot all the frames we needed on the hoop and Lauren disappeared off to the changing room for Kelly to start work on a second look for a different theme.  While they were changing up an idea started to crystallise, based on the ivy wreath that Lauren was wearing for the shoot.

It’d be cool, I thought, if we could make the hoop itself out of ivy, lending the shots something extraordinary and fitting in with the overall styling of the shoot. Obviously it was too late to do it in a single take, but it was going to be straightforward enough to composite, right ?

Wrong.

Turns out it’s really, really hard to find good stock imagery of ivy in a perfect hoop shape, lit appropriately, but instead of bailing out we just decided to do it the old fashioned way. Armed with a sack full of fake ivy (That Lauren happened to have laying around?!?) we bound up the hoop and shot it from the same positions under the same lighting, and then in what was to be Lauren’s most painful hoop shoot to date, grabbed some frames of her in the hoop wearing leggings , so that I could get some shadow data and some frames with hands and legs deforming the ivy.

From here it was a fairly simple masking job to bring the ivy into the shot and then just some toning and shadow work to sell the finished image!

Here’s a scroll-over Before & After of the finished work, you can see some of the minor adjustments to the dress and pose, as well as the compositing work on the Ivy hoop.

The final composite of 3 Lorettas and 5 Rosies!

Those who know me know that I’ve never been a fan of arachnids. I wouldn’t go as far as to run screaming from the room, but there’s a certain irrational unease presented by any houseguest with 8 legs. So, when I was asked by the lovely Loretta Hope to shoot her in conjunction with Rosie, a Chilean Rose Tarantula, naturally my first reaction was to say “Yes”.

Go figure.

I didn’t want to shoot a typical “Nude with spider” shot, and figured if I was going to shoot a cliché I may as well go in with both feet. I shot Lola in 3 different positions to get her legs into place, using car keys and a spot of gaffer tape to make sure everything was lined up as necessary. Colin (Rosie’s handler) then coaxed out the terrifying beast beautiful Rosie who proceeded to take a VERY leisurely stroll around Lola’s back. So leisurely, in fact, that I wasn’t able to get an adequate number of photos of Rosie in position to complete the full “Jacket of Spiders” effect that I wanted but, c’est la vie, and we got enough to make it work.

Base Pose Base pose Base Pose Adding the Legs... Basic retouching and backdrop cleanup Sprinkle on some Spiders... Colour Grade Add some atmosphere!

You can see the composition process in the slides, cleaning up the background, adding the legs, retouching and shading, then comping in the spider(s) with a mix of masks and darken blend modes. A detail crop is below, as well as a 1:1 crop of the spider detail. Nikon D800’s don’t hide much that’s for sure!

Also, I must concede, I discovered that spiders (At least giant, loping hairy ones) aren’t quite as terrifying as I’d expected, so a pretty positive outcome all round!

After compositing the plates, the finished image, whilst achieving what we set out to accomplish, didn’t really hit home for me, so laid into it with Photoshop and  a boatload of fake fog and blood brushes to see where it would end up. I’ll do a full breakdown on that at some point in the retouching section, but for now, enjoy the slightly disturbing outcome!