Mag Shoot
Hello, my name is Kev and I am the photographer behind KpHFashion. During preparation for a shoot in 2009, I decided to record my thought process, document the planning activities and show how I got to the final image. The reason why I wanted to do this and share it with visitors to my website, was that potentially, the next visitor may be my next customer or a creative who wants to work with me on a project. I see this as a way to convey how I approach all shoots, whether they be simple studio fashion, beach glamour or as in this case, a complicated magazine cover image.
The whole thing started, when I was approached to create an image for a magazine cover. It needed to be striking, edgy, slightly alternative, showing the model as a strong lady with attitude, yet desirable, but not within reach.
After a a few days of consideration, I came up with a basic idea, that she should be speeding through the forest, lighting the ground she speeds across, hunting animals. Nice and straight forward then!
Preparation
As with most things, planning usually helps a great deal and this was no exception. There were some very key elements that had to be established.
1. Where was the location to get the shot?
3. How would I light the ground she had sped over?
2. What was she hunting with?
4. What outfit should she wear?
5. What makeup was needed?
6. How do I show the idea of speed and movement?
The answer to the first question was fairly easy for me as I had been surveying a spot in some woods very close to my house for some 
months and I knew it was just a matter of time before I got the excuse to use it. I visited the spot at twilight to take meter readings and establish which direction I would shoot. The important thing about this particular site is that the camera can get a view of the sloping path as it enters camera right, it sweeps down left towards the camera. Also, this location has a reasonable depth of view into the woods behind the path, which will give me opportunities to light the trees deep into the woods.
Well with the location identified, I now set to work on lighting the ground - and I don't mean with 60W bulbs! No I wanted to set alight to the ground, real flames. The most obvious issue here is that I needed to consider the safety aspects of setting alight to a path in a forest. The second point is that natural flames are not very bright, how could I make sure I capture them? Plan and preparation.
I decided that the shot needed red/orange flames not blue, so I had to find a combustable material that gave red/orange flames. So alcohol based flammable liquids were no good on their own as they burn blueish. Petrol is ok but rather hard to ignite and get a sustained flame that gave me plenty of time to get the shot. AND here was a breaking point: It became obvious to me that getting the image from a single frame was not likely to happen. Although I really wanted to get the whole image from a single frame, the longevity of the flames and exposure needed suggest
ed that I was going to need multiple exposures and a bit of Photoshop layering.
It took me another few days to find the kind of burn that I needed. One of those large UK DIY stores beginning with the letter W supplies a brown roofing tape for rain proofing skylight windows. It is very nasty stuff, sticky, gunky, possibly poisonous, but I found that once iignited, it burns for about 5 minutes with a decent red/orange flame. It was not that easy to get ignited, so I used a sprinkling of white spirit and a blow torch. That sorted it. I did a test in the garden to see which speeds/apertures gave the result I needed. Remember that I took some snaps of the location at twilight. That is because the flames are fairly low luminosity so the ambient light needed to be very low for me to get the right feel in the shot.
Another one of my questions to be answered was "What was she hunting with?" My first thought was to a modern Bow and Arrows, so I approached an Archery shop nearby and asked if they would be interested in bringing some of their equipment to help out with the shoot in return for a mention on the image. Success! They would bring a modern Bow and older style longbows.
I had already obtained a red latex dress and new that for an edgy outfit, this would be just fine. But I wanted to make the whole outfit come across as a little magical and stand-offish. I wanted arrows weaved into the hair so that she could use her hair bun as a quiver. Things were progressing well with the planning. The last element of the shot was to introduce the idea of speed, which as we all know, in that time honoured tradition, is a question of just dragging the shutter whilst the subject moves around.
Ok then, Plan B was quite good too
Shoot day -1....disaster.... The best laid plans and all that suggest that you should always have a plan B. With one day to go the Archery shop decide to inform me that they cannot attend, even though I have been in regular contact with them. I hurriedly try to find an alternative supplier but fail - so we go to plan B. Plan B is the model wielding a Samurai sword and the arrows in the hair will be replaced by bamboo sticks. My assistant Andy also comes up with a blinding idea to attach some Sparklers to the sword as well. We are on...again.
The Cast
The model was a local favourite of mine called Nina the hair and makeup was to be done by Maria (MariaMUA) from Gillingham. I also needed my assistant Andy to be on top form for the shoot. Shooting in woods at twilight means you can guarantee two things. Firstly, it will be fairly dark and you can't see where you left all your bits and pieces. Secondly, there will be mozzies! Lots of mozzis! And when you start lighting fires in woods with lots of mozzies....even MORE of the bloody things come out to play...for miles around! We needed to get the shots done double quick. Andy stood by with a torch, pales of water and the fire extinguisher.
Lets Shoot
The twilight hour is more like 20 minutes or so it seemed. The girls were struggling to get the bamboo sticks to hold in Nina's hair bun, whilst we set up the shot. This was not going to be done in one take so I thought it best to do the fire shot before the model is ready. We laid the brown tape along the middle of the forest path, sprinkled the white spirit and took around 10-15 shots of Andy using the blow torch to ignite it. I tried a range of shutter speeds just to make sure I got something useable, but the ones around 1/40th are the ones I finally used.
The ot
her set of shots that we captured without the model was the smoky background. I had purchased some smoke bombs, the type that they use in war games and askd Andy to strategically place it whilst lighting it from the side and back with a flashgun.
Finally with the model brandishing the sword, bamboo sticks in her hair, on 6 inch heels we 
got the stationary shot of her posing in front of the tree. I took around 10 frames to get a slight variation on head and hand positions.
We also needed to get the movement shots of her speeding along the path. I wanted to make sure that the blur aligned reasonably closely with her final stationary shot position so instead of getting Nina to start top right and come down the path, I asked her to start at the final position and move away from me. I wanted her to move away from in a spining motion, waving the blade as she goes. Now you may remember that I said it was getting dark, at 100iso, she was not registering at all. If I used flash to light her, there would simply be a number of 'instant' views of her rather than a blur.
Therefore, to get the blur effect, I shot at 5secs shutter speed as she was whirling around up the path, with Andy lighting her dress and sword with a torch. We took several exposures of this to make sure we got a selection to work with.
The mozzies were biting hard by now, I knew we had little time left. Using small strips of wire I attached a Sparkler to the sword and Andy ignited it with the blowtorch.
I then asked Nina to follow the path whilst I had the shutter open. As a final few images I took some ''bankers' of Nina against a smoke backdrop, just in case I had completely screwed up plan A and plan B.
Post Process
Back in my study, it took me about 20 minutes to get a prototype layered in Photoshop and online for the team to comment on. Plan B had worked! Another couple of hours and we had a completed image. I decided to completely blur the effect of the Sparkler against the sword so it gives an almost whispy effect as if she is ghostly when in motion. Enjoy!
Techy stuff
Iinterfit Studio strobe powered by Innovatronix Explorer, 2M gridded softbox, camera left, 6ft from model, 2ft behind her.
Nikon Sb600 flashgun camera right, on 7ft stand, 10ft from model, gridded snoot
Nikon Sb600 flashgun on voice activated light stand (Andy) to rear
All flashes fired by Pocket Wizards
White balance on flash, taken in RAW
Lightroom adjustments for Vibrancy and Clarity
Photoshop used to layer different elements of image and masked accordingly
Skin softening and mozzie bite removal done in Photoshop.