One Night in Toronto - aka ruzz meets katie west

burdened as i was with an unwanted business trip to the toronto area i began searching the usual model sites for any interesting models. given the short notice i found little—then a friend and model of mine reminded me katie west lived in TO. joy.

I emailed her and after some discussion we managed to work it out. the plan was for me to sneak back from cambridge the last night i was out, rent a swanky hotel and make some beauty.

I booked the hotel at a pretty steep cost and was apprehensive about not having a strobe with me, just a single speedlight on pocket wizards. regardless of what strobist tells you theres no way to get 4ft ocatbox soft light out of speedlight. however, the constraint of a speedlight meant i would need to blend ambient light which is something i want to get better at.

we met up at the hotel and despite having not eaten and being exhausted i was pretty excited. She baked me cookies. how do i express the love?

after some minor technical issues (dead rechargables after only 3 days; always bring back up real batteries when travelling) and an exploration of the hotel for places we could jack without getting caught we set too shooting. it’s worth noting that hotel had a giant walk in bank style safe in the basement, however, there were cameras everywhere and the prospect of a night on the street after dropping large doughsacks made me err on the side of caution. in calgary i woulda went for it.

i was pretty tired and felt the light was fighting me most of the shoot. being in a new space, with new reflectivity, and strange reactions to flash, combined with exhaustion and meeting katie for the first time had me pretty frazzled. But we pushed through the beginning awkawardness of hello, can you remove your panties now?

the results are an interesting blend of our two styles. her posing is so distinctly her and despite the light problems i think my light felt more or less like my light and the union of those two things makes for some interesting shots. She’s one of those rare models who poses head to toe whether the rest of her body is in the shot or not, and she gives good shapes.

it’s interesting to shoot someone who has so clearly carved out their own style and almost trademarked a certain feeling. I often felt looking through the camera i was framing a katie west shot. That’s not bad thing to learn from. To recognize in-camera shots, or feelings that have already been well expressed by a fellow photographer, who happens to model for herself a lot is a good commentary on how effectively she’s carved that space out.

I took a lot of coverage because i was unsure of my light, and knew i would want to filter anything that was too “katie west”. I love that look and style, but also was curious about her other parts. her other personas. and I was really happy to get home and find some magical shots that i would classify as pure portrait art, as well as many beautiful, dark, more posed, more moody shots. I got about 4 shoots worth of shots out of a couple hours in harsh light.

and fucking cookies.

it was overall a great experience. She’s entirely down to earth and is as smart and sassy in real life as online. I feel pretty lucky to have converted a meaningless work trip into a real life experience and hey, shooting great models in fancy hotels in the big city ain’t such a bad way to live. 

beatrix mae, series 2 - part 1 - the grainy black and whites + tone plate / pinholes.

the more i work with beatrix, the more i respect her willingness to grow. and she was early. how often does that happen? I’m really enjoying putting models in that six foot softbox i call a living room window combined with the Olympus PEN in grainy black and white mode, square formatted, and lens suitably covered in dirt and oils. the light explosions and general unpredicability of how the poor PEN might react to trying to find the model against all that white make it focused work.

and having the camera do satisfactory post for me, saves massive amounts of time (a few minutes per picture = massive total) in post work. the feel to me is luxurious. nostalgic but not emotionally. sorta snapshot like in their unwillingness to be formal, and the odd bits that turn up and somehow more casual, but retaining all the beauty.

my only wish was to find more models as comfortable naked as my sweet love marla. beatrix felt right at home and in 25 mins we made 50 shots, probably 10 of which are very good, 4-5 i’m personally attached to.

so this is part one. if you’re interested in the straight blurred form shots those are made using the Pentax K20D with a lensbaby composer + tone plate optic. fancy.

if theres a model in calgary whose body has more curves, and more interesting dips, folds and forms—i haven’t met her.

i know i’m behind on my shoot updates.. i’ve been sick.

so to pass the time why not look at these pretty pictures.

Beatrix Mae..

For a long time I had this photographer’s crush on this edmonton based model. She’d worked with some photographers I liked, and had modelled some of tasha’s designs along the way. I sent an overly exuberant email off to her way back then professing my photographers love which generally kills any hope of working with someone as you seem a bit too eager, and it did for a while.

Then she moved to Calgary and we began discussing a shoot. Somehow we’d always be out on schedules, or one of us would get sick, or I would be overcome by my normal bouts of massive inadequacy and chicken out. yes, I still have those after all these years with some people. Then we finally set a date.

I’m suffering from a malaise of shooting indoors, in the same location too often and for too long and it’s really soured my eagerness to shoot, which tends to happen this time of year when outdoor shoots are iffy and the daylight is short but while she was getting ready i decided to hang some cloth against the wall to give some extra depth to things and give a sense of space I haven’t been doing in shoots lately. things fall out of habit so easily.

I had my lights in place early for this one and we tripped into beautiful light from the outset. It buoyed my spirits and I felt even if my eye was faltering the light might save me. sometimes the gods are kind in moments of weakness and within about 20 frames we had a publish worthy shot.

I was hoping for some grace and beauty and i found deep wells of it hiding between awkward moments. Like so many young models she hides in girl energy when unsure, but my prediction that she had a beautiful woman lurking unmanaged behind that was founded and it slowly eased out.

I did my best to capture it for you.