Dual person Lightpainting, Isle of Skye

As well as our model/photographer collaborative work Chrissie and I also dabble with joint photographic projects, which fits in well with Chrissies other interest, photography, something I am keen to explore with her. Both of these images are difficult to get right, having two lighting at once is interesting and in some cases makes something that is pretty much impossible to do alone within the reach of possibility.

Waterfall: Colourfall.

This waterfall is situated on the route from between Broadford and Portree, fairly accessible even if poor light and looked like a good subject for a lightpainting.
We used two large torches and a tripod mounted camera with a remote shutter release and the camera set to a bulb.
We were positioned either side of the camera for the “paint”.
Chrissie with a 2 million candle power torch, on the foreground rocks, water, right mid ground rocks, water and right-hand side rock face.
Myself, with a 10 million candle power torch, on the waterfall, tree, left mid ground rocks, water and the left-hand side rock face.
Exposure, approximately 2 minuets.

Cill Chriosd ruin, Isle of Skye: The Haunted.

This ruin is just outside Broadford, a place that I have visited and photographed before, it has been shot quite extensively so I wanted to make it a little different.
For this we used one large torch and two flashguns with gel coloured flash.
Chrissie went inside the ruin to fire coloured flash to create some interesting light effects.
Myself, with a 2 million candle power torch, from just behind left of camera and then far right of camera for dual directional light and shadows
Exposure, approximately 2 minuets.

Skye trip, 951 miles, art nude and waterfalls

Skye: Day 1, arrival.

As Chrissie has already bolgged Skye is at best tricky for doing location nudes due to its popularity, however we did manage to have a fairly productive trip in which we clocked up a respectable 951 miles in total.

I met Chrissie in Glasgow on the Friday morning, the trip up was fairly uneventful but the whether was good, on arrival we checked in to what turned out to be a rather lively hostel and headed straight out to Elgol, as I had been there before I had a fair idea of what may be possible.
I hadn’t actually explored this particular part before, so we wandered about looking for an interesting setting, toying with doing a waves crashing in the rocks shot which turned out to be a bit too risky at the time, we wanted something that shouted, WE ARE ON SKYE, I’m not sure who actually spotted this rock crevice on the beach, but this is one of the resulting images.

Skye: Day 2, explore.

Day two was largely a non even due to pretty poor weather conditions and lots of rain, so we spent a lot of the day just exploring the island.
By late afternoon the weather had cleared up considerably, we found a few locations worthy of a shot or two, went back to the hostle for something to eat and preceded back out to attempt to get something, we shot this as the light was fading, this was pretty much Chrissies choosing with me just left to get the photography end sorted.
Later we went in search for something that we could do a lightpainting of, which I will cover in the next blog entry.

Skye:Day 3 Labdscape Nude

On day 3 we ventured up to the north of the island in search of a suitable waterfall, Chrissie spotted a scene that looked good for a shot but just as we were stetting up a car pulled up reversed and decided to see what we were so interested in, so that was an abandonment.
We headed further up to Uig then decided that the southern part of the island yielded better locations and a nice waterfall.
The waterfall was swamped with tourists but we spotted this location neatly hidden behind some rocks, the sky was mean and moody and makes for something worthy of wet soggy feet (Chrissie had commandeered my boots) this is one of several shots we did there.

Day 4: Waterfall and departure

On day 2 we went to this waterfall in the evening to do a lightpainting and thought it would make a good location shot but it was way too popular .
The next morning Chrissie sais she really wanted to do it as a nude, we figured that would have to make some compromises to make this possible, we decided againsed our better judgments that would mean getting up early, very early, so 5 am it was!
This was our third visit to the fall, by now I had found a dry feet route to the fall lol, Chrissie was way ahead of me with nice boots ha ha. So while I set up, Chrissie composed herself for the shot and cold of the early morning, justice for stealing my boots :P this was the result.
We then headed back to the hostel, checked out and hit the road..

Searching for snow

Snow Shoot:

Snow Window.
Yesterday Chrissie and I took a wee jaunt further north, for reasons best known to ourselves, in search of snow and somewhere even colder than we are normally used to.
This is was the first shot of the day in a ruin that we came across, pretty much based on Chrissies liking for old windows and doorways.

Snow Landscape nude
Later in the day we came across this lovely open area with background hills.
after deciding where to set up the shot, in what can only be described as a chilling -3 C, this was the final result.

Model Behavior

Snow scene hunting with Chrissie:

Outtake.
On a wee jaunt north snow scene hunting one can be excused those little indiscretions in freezing conditions with a car passing, tooting filled with jeering guys ha ha.
Actually nothing of the sort, but the caption is rather Chrissie like! :D

Early Beginnings.

I guess the best place to start is right back at the beginning on our first non virtual meeting, I will try to make my postings as linier as possible or I can remember up to present.

I may get in trouble for posting this, however it forms part of the story so far, since this blog isn’t just about our work together but also about our friendship, it deserves its place here, so I guess I will just have to duck! I am sure that Chrissie has the odd photo that will make me cringe too.
On our first meeting we looked over a location that Chrissie had suggested which looked very promising, on our way back we found this rather odd chimney in the woods all alone and well just done something spontaneous.

Having walked around the location had got pretty much covered in mud up to our knees, I took a few shots for reference, this is one which later became the scene of a shot from out first proper shoot.


This is the resulting shot from the above location, all be it with a little less colour, A near miss with a random walker, and probably the first time I had been that close to an interesting situation to explain away :)


Finally for this entry, another image from the end of the shoot, I just happen to like this one a lot for a number of reasons, but for me it was the beginning of something special.