Oil Spill Photoshoot

MY THOUGHTS
I completed the oil shoot and used the mixture of both paints and oil.
The shoot went well even on the screen while shooting I was getting the dramatic effect I desired, the model looked like she was struggling to live. I had only tried the fake oil spill out on my hand so didn't really know how well it would work all over the body but thought if it didn't go well it could of just been a test shoot. I booked the studio late incase there was a lot of mess. I thought ahead and brought tarpaulin so the oil would be easily contained. We made sure we had the lighting right before adding the oil. However this did change afterwards due to the shine of the oil and that did take some messing around.

STRUGGLES
One thing I didn't think about and struggled with to start with was the oil having a high shine and the lights showing in it. When we were taking pictures from above the light showed in the oil on the floor.  It took a while for us to re adjust the lights and think about angles.

I also made sure to use vegetable oil as this doesn't cook until under a lot of heat so I knew this oil would be safe on my model. It's also used by a lot of still life photographers when they want to get a good shine.

Below is a few images from the shoot when Edited.

I'm really happy with how these images turn out. The model followed my direction well and was able to contort her body to make her self look like she was struggling.

WORKING WITH PHOTOGRAPHER
Me and the photographer worked so well together, I believe this was because we had spoken before hand about the shoot and I has sent over images I liked of lighting and detailed shots. When we arrived on set I brought an iPad with all these images on as well as poses I wanted to try and achieve so he would get a proper understanding of my shoot. Doing this made the shoot move smoothly as everyone involved understood the final image I was going for. As this worked so well I will defiantly be doing this again for my other shoots.

Inspiration on iPad

REVIEWING THE OVERALL EFFECT

Although I am going to use these images in my book. The only thing I would change for next time is the model wearing no pants. I would hire a professional model who wouldn't mind being naked. I don't think the pants are too distracting as the blend in nicely. If this was to be a professional book going into mass market against makeup books such as Andrew Gallimore and the collection by Brian Smith it would work better if the pants weren't there.

EDITING IMAGES
These weren't originally in black and white, and colour of her skin was showing through, sitting down with my photographer and playing around on photoshop we changed the filter to black and white and brought the tone down a bit to give it that deathly dark effect I wanted.
Below is what the images looked like before we edited them. I remember first being pleased with the images but looking back on them now they are no where near as good as when they have been edited.

After doing this shoot Green Peace contacted me and asked to see a few images from this shoot.

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WHERE TO GO FROM HERE -

Begin a mood board for my next shoot and find an appropriate model.
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