Zoe

[24Peter]

I shot Zoe at a clothing store here in Los Angeles. We only had a couple of hours but I think we got some good shots. See all the photos here: http://imageevent.com/24peter/zoemyers

1. http://photos.imageevent.com/24peter/zoemyers/large/IMG_3770.JPG

2. http://photos.imageevent.com/24peter/zoemyers/large/IMG_3854.JPG

3. http://photos.imageevent.com/24peter/zoemyers/large/IMG_3491edit.JPG

4. http://photos.imageevent.com/24peter/zoemyers/large/IMG_3668.JPG

5. http://photos.imageevent.com/24peter/zoemyers/large/IMG_3714.JPG

[timmciglobal]

Some nice stuff, I think I like 4 the most if only she was smiling a bit more in it.

Edit: Thought 3 was 4, sorry.

Tim

[forno]

Nice shots, 1 & 4 look great

[24Peter]

Thanks guys. But I must say, Zoe's not getting much love over here. She's feeling awfully neglected... :( Anyone else like her pics? :o

[D Thompson]

Thanks guys. But I must say, Zoe's not getting much love over here. She's feeling awfully neglected... :( Anyone else like her pics? :o
Oh course we do. Overall another great job. Being picky on some of them, but some of the poses look a little unnatural and something about the lighting on the first few. Also, some of the outfits didn't do much for me. Like I said - being picky.

#48 - smokes, although the clothes at the bottom are a little distracting. You could crop closer to #49, but then I think there was a thread about us people that crop sometimes are not pros :rolleyes: .

#54-#68 - these smoke, maybe it's the black dress, but these have the best expressions that sizzle. Great lighting & exposure, these are the best overall.

#74, #76-78 - sorry, don't care for the poses on these at all.

#80-81 - you maybe could've tried these in landscape with her to the right and let the diagonal lead into her. A plain white tank top or similar would maybe work on this one too.

#85 - another favorite, mostly due to her expression. Wow, one look and...........done.

Thanks for sharing & another great shoot from you.

[Marleetet]

To help me know how good the pictures might be: What were the pictures for? To show off the clothes for the store or to take pictures of the girl? What story were you trying to convey to the looker?

Mark

[Jeff Keller]

Great pics, cute girl, but she needs to smile more! Unless you're going for the "attitude" shots... IMHO of course.

[aparmley]

Hey Pete. Sorry I forgot about this thread, was going to comment after going through them all. Certainly not my area of expertise - wait, I'm not an expert in anything. . . maybe random crap photography!

Can you inform us about the outfits and posing so we know where to comment and what to leave alone. I'm pretty clueless about what goes into this photography and how much control you have so me going on and on about some of the clothing and poses might be moot and I wouldn't know. For example, I'm not current on what the posing trends are in the fashion industry, for all I know these are some hot poses here - again, I wouldn't know any different. While I like some of them others aren't so flattering. . . like 15 pose + outfit - might mislead people as to her expectations of motherhood, perhaps?

[coldrain]

She is a very beautiful model, Peter. Nice to see some of your work again!

I personally do not mind that she doesn't smile, fake smiles are a bit annoying at times. I havn't looked at the full gallegy yet, but I like the photos you posted here.

[noyjimi]

Nice work Peter. The ones with Zoe in the black dress looked especially awesome. #62 is my fave (the 1st one you posted here). In some images, I think I would have liked a bit of tilt to her head. Is she the store model?

[24Peter]

Ah yes - a not so veiled plea for attention/approval. Get's 'em every time. :D

Dennis - I agree - the first bunch with the red dress don't work all that well. Something about the shiny fabric/color of the dress and softbox/lighting setup was all wonky. Plus she and I were both a tense at the start.

Overall I found the backgrounds in many shots more distracting than I realized at the time. I posted on another forum that I am often surprised that what I see in a photo doesn't really match what I was seeing when I took the photo (if that makes sense). In the finished photos the backgrounds (clothing on shelves/countertops, manequins, etc.) seemed to take on equal importance in the image to my subject. But when I shooting I guess I was so focused on her, I didn't really think about what else might appear in the frame. Good practice for next time.

I love all my photos but the black dress shots are among my favs. Thanks for commenting.

Mark - the purpose of the shoot was 1) more practice for me as a fashion photographer 2) stuff for Zoe's portfolio and 3) photos for the store owner to show off his clothes.

Jeff - always an honor to have your input (how's that for brown-nosing ;) ) In my opinion Zoe has kind of a strange smile. You can see it a little bit in #40 and 67 on my gallery. But none of the really big smiles worked for me so I didn't include them. They looked "forced". Plus fashion photography is all about attitude anyway. If we were doing headshots I might have had her smile more but for these I didn't encourage that.

Andy - I basically let her and the shop owner pick out the clothes. We only had about 2-3 hrs to get the shoot done and I don't have an assistant so I basically left clothing choices up to them while I was setting up. The clothes in that store are young and contemporary (I could see Paris Hilton in many of those outfits) (Zoe is 19 yrs old BTW). So I had enough trouble figuring out where to put lights, etc. and didn't want to make more decisions regarding her clothing. As for poses, if I think they need it, I give my subjects pretty specific direction. Zoe seemed a little more comfortable directing herself so I didn't get too specific with her. But yeah, between the way she was standing and the way that dress billowed around her waist in #13, 15 and others does make her look a little pregnant (I actually had to liquify a few other shots with that dress in the computer b/c she looked really pregnant. ) But at 5'9", 108 lbs, she's pretty slim and not to my knowledge expecting.

coldrain - thanks for the supportive comments. Yes this was my first shoot in 6 weeks and I was a bit rusty. I did a couple of video projects (including a wedding) during that time, but needed to wrap my mind around my still camera and strobes again which took a while.

noyjimi - thanks for the comments. No, Zoe is an aspiring model/actress originally from Atlanta, GA. You can find out more about her here: http://modelmayhem.com/member.php?id=54556

[Marleetet]

For me-I think she is a pretty enough girl- but not that dynamic. She has the bad postured, full of angst teenager look down well: but I don't think that is going to sell herself or the clothes, to anyone.

The best shots I saw for the clothes were 8 & 17 (jumper is supposed to be fun and sassy: those are the only shots that she gives that feeling).

53 is a good shot for her and the clothes.

Because facial shape, although very skinny, her face looks pudgy. I would suggest only 1/4 right profiles to face on, slightly down tilted for hair down. If her hair is back (like in 6-21) left profiles would work too.

I would also suggest shooting her with a smaller fstop to blur the background a little to a lot, to really make her and the clothes really stand out. Again, she just isn't dynamic enough to command the scene.

More than you wanted from me, but that's my two cents anyway.

Mark

[jamison55]

I love #4 in the first post, and #'s 58 & 60 in the gallery!

[Sorinev]

Yeah the backgrounds do kinda distract, but I think it looks nice in that first picture. Whatever that thing is in the background of the first picture, it goes nicely with her hair and dress. But speaking of distracting backgrounds, I assume the "Royal Cheapskate" thing on the wall with her underneath it in the pink dress was intentional? Because it's so obvious, I can't see it being incidental ;) It's kinda funny though, in a nice way (if that makes sense).

I do know what you mean about the backgrounds looking fine while you were shooting, and not looking weird until afterwards when you were reviewing the photos. Considering the model though, I would have been distracted from the backgrounds too at the time :D

[24Peter]

I love #4 in the first post, and #'s 58 & 60 in the gallery!

Jamie! Waz up! :o

[24Peter]

But speaking of distracting backgrounds, I assume the "Royal Cheapskate" thing on the wall with her underneath it in the pink dress was intentional?

Yeah, intentional - 'cept it's not on the wall. I did that in the computer. But it is the name of the store so it's not totally random. :)

[24Peter]

BTW since no one has mentioned it, shots #69-85 were all done outside in the middle of the day. The sun was bright and directly overhead. #69-73 were shot with my Canon 28-105 3.5-4.5 USM II. #74-85 were done with my kit lens. In both cases, I used a polarizer, stopped way down and lit her using my Alien Bee B800 strobe. (If you look at the shadow on the ground in #72 and 74 you can see how high the sun was.) But I cranked up the strobe so it was my key light and I used the sun as my backlight/fill. I think it's a cool effect. :cool:

[aparmley]

Andy - I basically let her and the shop owner pick out the clothes. We only had about 2-3 hrs to get the shoot done and I don't have an assistant so I basically left clothing choices up to them while I was setting up. The clothes in that store are young and contemporary (I could see Paris Hilton in many of those outfits) (Zoe is 19 yrs old BTW). So I had enough trouble figuring out where to put lights, etc. and didn't want to make more decisions regarding her clothing. As for poses, if I think they need it, I give my subjects pretty specific direction. Zoe seemed a little more comfortable directing herself so I didn't get too specific with her. But yeah, between the way she was standing and the way that dress billowed around her waist in #13, 15 and others does make her look a little pregnant (I actually had to liquify a few other shots with that dress in the computer b/c she looked really pregnant. ) But at 5'9", 108 lbs, she's pretty slim and not to my knowledge expecting.


Pete thanks for the response. I really enjoyed the location. I'm sure you had your hands full with selection the spots and congifuring the lighting. I referenced #15 as an example. . . The series with the extremely tight grey outfit ruled out any possibility of assuming she might be expecting a delivery from the stork any time soon. ;) I hate doing the same old "Great shots" post that comes off as if we didn't really take the time to view the whole series or want to take the time to give you some feedback and I really hate making remarks about things I might be totally clueless about. So that kind of places me in a tough spot. Posing, while I will tell you I know nothing about it, but I do feel that I can, on occassion, point out some poses that perhaps are not very flattering or appealing. Hopefully, I have done this and can do this without offending you. But, it all really stems from my extreme pickiness - and this as you may be well aware of is a source for a lot of self doubt and a barrier I need to work past.

Anyway - good to see you shooting again and I liked the idea for the location and I really like the graffiti shots - what a cool spot.

[cwphoto]

Love your variety Pete - you're going to retail stores for shoots now?!

Where will it end?!:D

[24Peter]

Where will it end?!:D
Downunder? Or New Jersey. Can't really tell. ;)