This was another look from my shoot with Gemini that got picked up for publication recently by Opium Red Magazine. I've been a fan of Opium Red for quite a while now and am happy to be featured in Augusts edition.
I loved this hat that Gemini brought to the shoot, and knew that we had to incorporate it into something that day. Ultimately we both felt it would be the strongest on its' own.
The corduroy texture just begged to be juxtaposed against the smoothness of skin. It wasn't a conscious decision at the time, but we are all certainly a product of our influences, and I definitely feel like I gave this a bit of a Sam Haskins vibe a la Cowboy Kate.
Simple setup = thunder gray seamless, one light with a deep, long throw reflector and a couple of v-flats. This helped bring out the texture in the hat, the highlights on the lips, and since Gemini is blessed with great skin the specularity really enhanced her lines.
Post production was a simple BW conversion in Lightroom with some tweaks to the channel mixer and curves, followed by a little burning and dodging to enhance the highlights/shadows that were already present.
When shooting images with a lot of skin showing I feel it even more critical to select images based on the best expressions and movement. It's painfully obvious to me when a shooter chooses images where they feel a pose was "sexy" or dramatic, and they've overlooked or disregarded something in the facial expression that cheapens or otherwise makes the image less successful.
Opium Red is a Kiev, Ukraine based publication. I would encourage you to go to Magcloud and buy a digital or print copy. This issue is full of great work by some wonderful artists and your support truly helps keep them creating and publishing during this conflict.
Visit https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/2299108 to preview and purchase.