I See Red - Fashion Shoot

I shot this 'red' fashion story in the grounds of Palazzo della Gherardesca which is now the Four Seasons Hotel in Florence. This park is breathtaking once the grounds of the home of the Florentine Gherardesca family, boasting four hundred year old trees. I shot all the images in the shade using a simple reflector for a little separation from the background. The original greens were overpowering so i literally 'gassed' them in photoshop. Firstly I separated the model and the background working on layers. Using a bleach-by-pass plug-in in photoshop, I repeated the process over and over again working on the 'greens' till I had almost a grey effect. I wanted my summers day to have a wintery feel. I then worked on the model trying to keep a nice skin colour and not strip too much colour out of the clothes. All shot using 50mm and 35mm Leica Lens on my Leica M8. Fashion editor was the talented Florentine Marta Innocenti Ciulli.

Natural Light and a beautiful girl

I have learnt to use natural light under many different circumstances and I have risked numerous times shooting fashion inside using ambient light. It's nerve wracking without a dout. but depending where you are in the world and who designed the building you will be shooting in, you maybe lucky like I have been and manage to pull it off. Our location was in a room of an ex-Florentine convent. Falling apart at the seams just the way we love it. I checked out the vaulted ceilings and high windows the day before noting the time when the sun was at it's highest, when it had completely died and making light readings along the way. The weather the following day was predicted to be the same so I went for it. I shot on my Leica M8 iso 400 with an assistant using a reflector. At certain times of the day the light boomed in the window bouncing of the walls creating a soft box effect. Mother nature, a wonderful stylist, great model and photoshop did the rest. I used a combination of bleach by pass, curves and colour correction to obtain the washed out colours.