Recently I helped out my studio partner, Ralph Lemarechal of
Photoshoot.me, with a project to create some high fashion images of some of
Marlies Dekkers' latest lingerie, together with an exclusive (and very expensive)
Francois Noel black lace wedding dress. Ralph had managed to get permission to do the shoot at the Harley Davidson dealership in Amsterdam,
Harley World, and had lined up a custom Harley for his model
Maike to sit on.
Ralph's original plan had been to shoot the bike on location outside, but unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side, so we ended up spending the day inside. The team at Harley World were very receptive to our needs though, and let us set up a full mobile studio in the space upstairs.
I was just assisting Ralph so wasn't actively shooting, but did manage to snap a couple of backstage photos from the day. I'm sure Ralph will post some of his finished photos on his
blog once he has worked on them.
Since Harley World stores most of their bikes downstairs, and usually uses the upstairs as a cafe or meeting place, the first thing we had to do was get the bike upstairs. Luckily the guys from HW were on hand to help us, and within a few minutes the bike was lifted up with a fork lift and in position.
The bike itself was pretty impressive, as you can see from the image below - I used HDR to bring out some of the details in the bike. Unfortunately the background was not so great, but hopefully it would be possible to improve upon that with careful lighting and careful post processing.
We brought the Elinchrom heads with us from the studio, and set the light up with the large Octabox on one side, and the Deep Octa on the other. We also had a wind machine to give some movement to the model's hair.
The first shoot of the day was with our model wearing the black wedding dress, and as Monica made sure the dress was fitted correctly, Pieter from
Mushota hair and make-up did some final alterations to the hair.
The dress itself had a long lace train, and flowed over the back of the bike, giving an opportunity for some nice shots. We set the lights up crossing over so that the large octa would be lighting up the bike, with the deep octa providing the light for the model's face
Pieter did a great job with the make-up, and was always on hand to make any necessary adjustments.
Once Ralph had finished shooting the dress, Maike changed into the Marlies Dekkers lingerie, and the shoot continued
Ralph had assembled a great team for the day, and the shoot was a lot of fun. Although we weren't able to achieve all we wanted, it was definitely a good project to be involved with. Maybe again in the summer? :)
