Available light fashion shoot: My start: Behind a New York Hotel!

So often we use expensive lights to get the wonderful shots we want. How about just available light? Maybe a reflector or an on comera flash for fill, but perhaps not. I had the opportunity to meet a New York young lady with exotic features from her Morrocan and European genes that fascinated me. So I aked her to meet me before I haqd to leave by train for Boston. Then out train was to leave early and she came late. So the shoot was down to 30 minutes. First I grabbed an available light portrait as she was sitting by the grand piano in the hotel foyer. It's posted here. Then I took some shots by the window and after that we scurried outside and did everything we really liked in about 15 minutes! No relfectors, no fill flash, just NY City morning light!

I decided to present the photographs with large yellow lettering that is in front of her, as it seems that the area behind the hotel was of that character. There was hustle and bustle and yellow and yellow. Hence the large yellow letters and myself in the picture, that way!

There was little time, so it was important to exploit the environment, taking in anything archetypical for the place. We then found our first truck. The driver must have skipped into the hotel and we just took advantage of the free use of it while we had the chance.

Here Suzanne was sporting enough to lie down on the New York grating over some underground vault!



I am amazed that her white coat was not marked. She also was so oblivious to the workers and hotel people rushing past. No one bothered to check if she had fallen!

Asher

We spotted a truck unloading and that became another handy prop.



Then the yellow stanchions protecting the ubiquitous garbage dumpsters became our last backdrop.



I hope you like this very fast shoot. No rats were trampled on during the whole production!

Asher

Another winner. I visited this thread yesterday for another look at your Armenian model. Should be in grab portraits.

Hi, Asher,

Hot!

Asher Kelman said:

I decided to present the photographs with large yellow lettering that is in front of her, as it seems that the area behind the hotel was of that character. There was hustle and bustle and yellow and yellow. Hence the large yellow letters and myself in the picture, that way!

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Whatta bunch of baloney!

In any case, to me, her face works the very best in this shot (more than in the the ones to follow).

Great work.

Doug_Kerr said:

....

Whatta bunch of baloney!
...

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Hi Doug,

Knowing your style a bit by now, I am sure that there is a depth/twist to this statement of yours which is not immediately clear to me. Would you please help me understand a bit more what you mean? Thx

Cheers,

Hi Asher,

Considering the circumstances of this shoot, I think that you have achieved very good results. I will come back to comment on the individual pictures later today but I have to rush now to a meeting.

Cheers,

PS: My humble opinion is that before we enlarge this thread with many more pictures, however beautiful they might be, is to pay a little more attention to what Asher has posted and C&C them first .

Cem_Usakligil said:

PS: My humble opinion is that before we enlarge this thread with many more pictures, however beautiful they might be, is to pay a little more attention to what Asher has posted and C&C them first .

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Mon cher Cem
You should have noticed that I very very rarely C&C images post by others.
Asher (and I) are quite oftenly posting pictures (in the case of Asher, he also use to repost an image from someone else) in order to create a debate or discussion.

So did I here to ad to the "buzz". This does not mean that I do not pay attention to Asher's pics.
On the contrary.

Asher,

Very nice. Bring her back to BH, I'll get the condo on Wilshire again.

Hi, Cem,

Cem_Usakligil said:

Hi Doug,

Knowing your style a bit by now, I am sure that there is a depth/twist to this statement of yours which is not immediately clear to me. Would you please help me understand a bit more what you mean? Thx

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I mean that the notion that this bright yellow copyright banner is somehow a coordinated artistic element of this image, because "the area behind the hotel was of that character", makes no sense to me.

Best regards,

Doug

Finally, Cem has maybe be right, so I moved the pics previously posted here

to there

Nicolas Claris said:

Cem_Usakligil said:

PS: My humble opinion is that before we enlarge this thread with many more pictures, however beautiful they might be, is to pay a little more attention to what Asher has posted and C&C them first .

Click to expand...

Mon cher Cem
You should have noticed that I very very rarely C&C images post by others.
Asher (and I) are quite oftenly posting pictures (in the case of Asher, he also use to repost an image from someone else) in order to create a debate or discussion.

So did I here to ad to the "buzz". This does not mean that I do not pay attention to Asher's pics.
On the contrary.

Click to expand...

Bill Miller said:

Asher,

Very nice. Bring her back to BH, I'll get the condo on Wilshire again.

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Thanks for the invite. I'm going to go back to New York some time and try to photograph her again.

I like the idea of including my name in the images as the concept of photography is not part of her life and it's just me coming along and feeling I had to choose her. So I felt for artistic purposes, using a text as a part of the composition would be an interesting exercise. I could put some other words instead next time. I just like the idea from an esthetic standpoint.

Now Doug, you feel I haven't succeeded using my name as I wished. So I'll think about that more. At the moment I still like it very much as it fits in with the back of the hotel milieu with so many yellow lines and poles. It works on that level for me. However, it is also intended to look interesting to the observer too.


Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Now Doug, you feel I haven't succeeded using my name as I wished. So I'll think about that more. At the moment I still like it very much as it fits in with the back of the hotel milieu with so many yellow lines and poles.

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If I could see the yellow lines and poles, I might "get it". Where do I look? On the picture that was visible where you were discussing your concept, the only yellow thing is a line around the sign on the back of a New Jersey truck.

I do see some yellow stanchions on a later frame. Are those the "poles" of which you speak? Or are we looking for some cowards from Warsaw?

Doug

Asher

for me-

the first is real
has some human spunk
some gesture of true spirit-

Charlotte-

Hi,
I like the natural look.
The lettering is not my taste but that's always personal.

Love her expression and the overal look on the shot and that's the main subject in a good shot.