Elston Photography Blog: International Princess Project

A few weeks ago, I shot the largest catalog shoot I’ve done to date. It was for InternationalPrincess Project (IPP), which is devoted to rescuing oppressed women around the world. Their mission statement is “Establish self-sustaining enterprises in partnership with indigenous organizations that provide for physical, emotional and spiritual needs of women formerly enslaved in prostitution; AND advocate for women enslaved in prostitution around the world.” Making and selling of their product called PUNJAMMIES™ is crucial to part of this goal and I was excited to join with this worthwhile effort. IPP will be overhauling the PUNJAMMIES™ website shortly and using all of our photos from this shoot – including a second one coming up this weekend.

Part 1 - Farmers Market

For the first part of the shoot, they wanted to capture “wearing PUNJAMMIES™ in everyday places” so we headed off to a farmers’ market in Huntington Beach. We got the models in their outfits and really just wandered around having fun as I took photos in a more candid manner. There’s nothing special with the setup, it was about everything being natural and everyday so the “setup” mimicked just that. Here’s my favorite shot from this location.

At the Huntington Beach Farmer's Market
Models: Becky, Georgia, and Stephanie

Part 2 - Studio

5 models, 26 “looks”, 3 views per look, and 2.5 hours.

One of the most interesting things about this shoot was the logistics of getting all the models there (which I helped out with since I’ve shot with most of these girls before) and the rotations of getting everyone in their outfit, shooting, and having them get ready for the next look, while the next model stepped in. Probably the most interesting part was that, due to our numbers and time constraints, I didn’t get to take the time to detail and perfect every little thing imaginable - which is what I would normally do with a fashion shoot! It really became almost an assembly line of: “new girl, full-body shot, zoom-in shot, spin around shot, next!”

Technical

I needed to set up everything, including lighting, perfectly from the start and then have the models come in and shoot without adjusting the light for the rest of the shoot. Since it was a nice, clean and non-dramatic catalog shoot, I used one of my favorite light modifiers, the Profoto Giant Parabolic Reflector 180, along with the Profoto D1 1000w head with a frosted dome. Went with my standard studio set up of 1/125, f/8, and ISO 100, and had the light at f/11.

Setup overview: Stephanie and Christina

Dynamic

As the shoot went on, I was able to chat with each of the girls more and more and our dynamic seemed to keep improving from look to look. This in turn improved the results in the photos. Hopefully the models all had a good time even though they were sitting around most of the time and I only interacted with them for about 5-6minute intervals.

The girls enjoying their downtime (they had a lot of it!)

Here are my favorite two “triples” from the shoot

Model: Marina

Model: Becky

Thoughts After the Shoot(s)

I love soothing with primes, so I had my 85mm f/1.2L on the whole time. Thinking about it again, I should have brought the 70-200mm f/2.8L USM IS II instead. Image quality at f/8 on this lens is still going to be absolutely amazing (vs. having to shoot “wide open” for creative reasons or in available light, which I love doing) so that I didn’t have to keep moving back and forth to get the full body shots and then the close ups. This would have saved some time per model. Also, I should have used a tripod, even though I prefer not to, to more easily get camera angel uniformity from shot to shot. Perhaps maybe invest in some knee pads since I was all bruised the next day from kneeling for hours on the unyielding cement!

I’ll be applying these lessons learned to our second half of the shoot this weekend and should have a new post shortly thereafter!