Often when working with models they know how to come alive. Before you know it they’re pulling of beautiful poses. The more creative models will start freestyling doing all kinds of unexpected contortions. You can create the most unique set of images but when it’s time to place them into a personal body of work, they rarely find a place.

On the other spectrum, where the model waits awkwardly for input, often a feeling remains this awkwardness. When you do start to direct them, the question is, direct them to do what exactly? Often the most successful approach might be bluntly summarised by saying “stand there and look pretty.”

Try as hard as you like to play around with the traditional portrait whilst using models, it’s hard to create something that looks genuine, unstaged, says something about the creator and becomes a part of a coherent body of work.

I find myself unbalanced between being a straight photographer who captures models how they present themselves yet desperately trying to introduce something of the conceptual without actually knowing what that element is. My personal aesthetic isn’t digital art, it’s mainly the creativity that seeps out when restricted by straight photography’s limitations. Whilst uncertain of many things, I take comfort in this solid aspect of my personal style.

An influence I’ve recently stumbled upon is the Danish painter Hammershoi. A large element of his work is about interiors and their space. From experience I know this isn’t going to be an element of my work. There is something very special of many an old interior space which you will struggle to find today. 

His compositions are very simple yet sublime, almost blocky. I get a strong affinity to Whistler who he must of drawn inspiration. His use of light and space is very delicate. His backgrounds and props are simple and domestic in nature.

Many of Hammershoi’s paintings make me question if they are even portraits. My favourite images are of his models facing away. His figures seem to become building blocks of an overall composition that may not even be about them, but somehow you end up pondering upon their personality.

When I first saw a Hammershoi I was gripped by a strange feeling that I was somehow dead, or they where dead. Never have I felt this strange outer-body like experience when viewing an image. I feel like I’m peering though some “other dimension” bodiless and non existent.

 Perhaps the inhabitants of the painting are dead, now just a recording of themselves played back through time and only seen by those gifted in spiritual matters on lonely dark nights. Try as you like to get their attention, they carry on with their silent chores uninterrupted. 

The people in his spaces are just existing, being in the moment. Completely unaware and often facing away. There is no hint of an artist standing out of shot giving them directions. Never have I seen figures so egoless. It’s hard to class them as portraits although candid images seems so hopelessly inadequate a description. 

The artists skill is making the commonplace sublime. The simplest of elements, doorways, an empty stool, picture frames.  People engaged in the simplest of domestic chores and just being.  A feeling of stillness and silence.  A silence so strong it feels like a protest.

I remain open to somebody demonstrating to me how flash can get the results I want but Im not even sure its technically possible to get it to work with vintage cameras, very slow shutter speeds and an emulsion that doesn’t quite see light the same way as modern film.

The problem I often run into especially with Gelatin Dryplates is that working with overcast often isn’t always quite the magical a light as some photography teaching books indicate. Sometimes it is just plain crap. Very overcast lighting also needs slower shutter speeds thus more blurry models. Your range of poses and shoot locations becomes more limited.

A problem more specific to older emulsions that the clouds really light the top of the head but the UV light in the shadows is drastically lower. It is extremely hard to avoid deep shadows under the eyes even with the softest of overcast light.

I recently watched a Field In England. I absolutely fell in love with its melancholy overcast light, its dreary English field and beautiful B&W. I tried my best to find out how they filmed it to try and get some tips. I read they only used one LED light panel, this was a seriously budget film masterpiece. Annoyingly I have no idea what LED light panel and there is a whole magical kingdom out there of video LED lighting that is so professional, even WEX don’t sell it and nobody has ever heard of it.

Feeling inspired by the fact they created such an amazing feel with overcast and an LED light panel I decided to give it a go myself.  I ended up with an Aputure LED light that wasn’t a panel light. My theory was I could use modifiers to soften it if needed.

The photograph above was shot with a large pop up reflector positioned out of shot at the top right of the image. The reflector was silver side facing the model and the Aputure LED was shot into it at full power. The effect looks quite convincing and the light soft.

As I only had one reflector I did not have another reflector to bounce any light back into the left although the emulsion seems to of just got enough shadow detail to satisfy my tastes. I was worried the light would not register quite as strong on a gelatin plate as it appeared to the eye but it looks like it easily did the job. Any more light and I might of blown some detail out.

A good detail about this pose is that Anna Mays face is looking up which gives the best conditions for overhead lighting to light the face with a lot less chance of getting deep eye sockets due to shadows.

The above image wasn’t quite as successful  although I still feel its a nice portrait. In this image I wanted to try and give quite a big POP to natural lighting but the results a bit overkill. The Aputure light is just behind the model to the image left. Its shining straight into her neck area. There is also a reflector at image right providing fill.

After developing the image I now realise that I need to be more careful with this lighting technique. I think it works best when accent lights are just a slither of strong light. In this image her whole cheek is overblown and her right arm looks a bit odd. Ive a feeling I used the silver side of the reflector and there is some confused lighting direction issues happening.

I feel the lighting of the jumper against the darker foliage works really well and I might like to experiment with that concept more. Where the cheek is strongly lit against a fairly light face and bright sky it seems to lack the same impact as a slither of bright light surrounded by darker tones.

As the LED light was used more as an accent light it also didn’t help too much in brighting the overall scene up and the shutter speed was a little low which resulted in a slight motion blur. I feel the reflector may possiblly of been better placed to try and bounce more light back into her face only.

One thing that I love about this image is the models hair, I think she really saved this image with such a nice pose.

This image has turned out almost exactly as I wanted. The accent light is perhaps covers slightly too much of her cheek but I wanted a dramatic almost blown out amount of power. This image also seems to work better than the previous image as the accent light is also framed by a darker background. The right sleeve is sublime. The light has also caused some flare in the lens which isn’t always desirable.

The image is a bit soft and Im starting to feel I really need to increase the film speed of my emulsion next year. Im currently about ISO 2 bit it often helps to give and extra half stop so its always an issue having a bit of motion blur. I don’t feel like I’ve really mastered slower emulsions but there may be a few things I can try to attempt to get closer to ISO 3 without going too technical.