Most of my work is as a Kent wedding photographer which is my main passion and source of income. I do love doing a few different things and working as a kent model portfolio photographer is my other main passion.
When I shoot weddings, most of my work is wedding photojournalism, with some bride and groom portraits – although we never seem to have enough time to really go to town on these, and most couples would rather spend the time with their guests which I understand and am happy to do more candids. So when the opportunity comes to work with a stunning model in a great location and really take our time over lighting and posing, I love to take it!
I’ve been wanting to shoot at this location for about two years, but the logistics of it are tricky. There’s a fair bit of travel involved (and with the M25, you never know if that’s going to be an hour or 5!), we needed good weather (although it was still freezing cold) and the location is urban, gritty and well, a bit dodgy. I did have some reservations – despite never having seen anyone there – of taking loads of expensive camera equipment and a model I’d met an hour previously, through the undergrowth into a fairly desolate wasteland with spray cans littered everywhere, but Lisa-Marie was a true professional. With assistance from Dan Woolgar, we got to work as quickly as possible, the first set up used off camera flash (4 flashes in some of the pictures) which had to work very hard – I would have liked to shoot there during dusk, but I just didn’t fancy it. So the flashes were ramped up to full power to try to overpower the daylight.
We then made our way down the walls, shooting against the graffiti – most of which is mind blowing. There are some true artists plying their trade down on those walls and it’s great to see that the council have just let them have free reign. Most of the other shots are a mixture of natural light with the odd bit of reflector thrown in just to lift them a bit, and some flash. I couldn’t quite get all the shots I wanted as my Canon EX580’s just weren’t powerful enough to overpower the sunlight. Oh for some Elinchrom Quadra’s….
Hope you enjoy! If you’re a model looking for something a bit different to the usual studio starter-portfolio pics, get in touch to discuss my model portfolio package. Or, if you’re an experienced model and want to collaborate on a TF basis, then please let me know! You can contact me here
All images are copyright David Burke Photography 2013 – no unauthorised reproduction.
