Four Girls and a Piano

Four Girls and a Piano

matty_4.25.09_295 - Version 2 (1)

I had an itch that needed to be scratched for a couple months now, and that itch was shooting a group models in elegant dresses in a classy environment. After weighing the options, we concluded that the Lairmont in Bellingham would be our best bet for making that happen, granted we were in the area already from the morning shoot. Armed with a car full of equipment, the same four models from the dafodill shoot, five makeup/hair artists, one film director shooting behind-the-scenes material, and the Lairmont, I was ready to scratch that itch.

All 9 of the girls (model and makeup) headed to the basement of the Lairmont to do there thing. Dana Miller, my makeup/hair supervisor for the shoot, is quite the character. Blunt, in-your-face, sarcastic, and great at what she does… just the way I like ’em. I quickly give Dana the rundown on what kind of look I’m wanting for the models and she’s off. I don’t have to think about it again, Dana’s got it covered.

The Lairmont is a beautiful estate. The building is huge and so well designed, I could take a model around and shoot for days. Having four models for this shoot, I selected just a couple places to focus on for capturing the group.

A black grand piano surrounded by huge windows and rich woodwork was going to be my key location. It was already setup in a way where I could place the four models in unique locations on and around the piano and it just worked perfect. A few hurdles to this shot, and that would be the lighting of this particular layout. How to light 4 models who will be ranging up to 10 feet away from each other without cooking the foremost model while still lighting the furthest model properly, as well as lighting the furniture they are on so that the beauty of the set would be captured as well. Four strobes were used – one with a huge softbox as the key light, one medium softbox as a fill, one softbox from ground-level to accent the curves of the black piano, and one hidden behind the piano to light furthest model and wall.

Another location was in front of a large set of windows. There was a ton of natural light pouring through the windows, so I used a combination of strobe and ambient light to capture these shots. We also busted out a fan and played with some material. Kim and I had fun doing some jumping shots.

One of the last sets was on the turn of the stairs. I tucked the models into the windowsil and shot them using a just natural light. Kim’s shots turned out especially well as her dress was thin enough to let the sun punch through the end of the fabric, giving a nice look.

A huge thanks to the whole crew, you all did a fantastic job. There were many laughs, it was a fun time for all, and we got some great pictures out of it!

SHOOT CREDITS:

Production Assist/Video work: Andrew Lahmann
Models: Kimberly Couture, Anna White, Myrriah Train, Lisa
Hair/Makeup Supervisor: Dana Miller
Hair/Makeup Artists: Eva Furler, Katie Inman, Sharon Guzman, Teri Scheffer