cheng-han

Cheng Han - The Artist's House-39

Shot as part of an editorial shoot for Joanne Fleming design, a wedding dress designer in a converted monastery built in 1379!

CREDITS
Gowns ...
Read more

Shot as part of an editorial shoot for Joanne Fleming design, a wedding dress designer in a converted monastery built in 1379!

CREDITS
Gowns & styling; @joflemingdesign
Millinery; @lomaxandskinner | MUA; @harrietrainbow | Hair; @simplybeautifulweddinghair | Jewellery; @ederajewelry, @lottadjossou | Venue; @alexmacarthurinteriors | Model; Maika @mkmodelmanagement | Cheng’s assistant & bts; @photocillinuk
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May, 2018

Views

1541

Likes

+275

Awards

Community Choice Award

Editor's Choice

Peer Award

+550

Outstanding Creativity

+15

Superb Composition

Top Choice

Absolute Masterpiece

Magnificent Capture

Superior Skill

All Star

Virtuoso

Genius

Emotions

Impressed

Top Ranks

Top 30 rank

Top 20 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 30 rank week 2

Top 30 rank week 1

Top 30 rank

Top 20 rank week 1

Behind The Lens

Location

In a converted monastery on the South Coast of England built in 1379!!!

Time

It was taken as a part of an editorial type shoot shot over the course of an entire day. This particular image was shot during the mid-afternoon.

Lighting

The shot was lit using a mixture of ambient lighting, ceiling lighting and flash. As much as I would have liked to use the natural light coming through the windows, which looked beautiful in the morning, the sun was over the other side of the monastery by the time we did this shot. I therefore had to try to recreate the direction of the light using flash. I put a single Elinchrom Octa with a scrim placed in front of it very high up in the room pointing down towards the model in approximately the same direction as the sun would have been in the morning. To accentuate the sense of moodiness, I used a smoke machine to make the light from the flash partially visible on the top left to suggest the idea of fog coming through the windows.

Equipment

Pentax 645Z, Pentax 90mm, Manfrotto tripod, Elinchrom Quadra, Elinchrom Octa. I wanted the perspective and compression of distance which you would get from a medium format 90mm. However, the shot needed the field of view of a wide-angle. I therefore shot a stitched image, tiling the shots to create a wider field of view while maintaining the perspective of a 90mm. It's a technique I often use to avoid the distance distortion from a wide angle.

Inspiration

It was a shoot produced by the clothing designer, Joanne Flemming who makes beautiful wedding dresses, some of which have a vintage look to them. She asked me to take the images and I had the luxury of focusing purely on image making rather than gathering the team. This room was the most dramatic of all the areas within the ex-monastery. There was so much to see, the huge skeletons, the chandeliers. the various sculptures - I wanted to include as much of it as I could. In addition, the owner had this beautiful Great Dane who followed us around everywhere - he had to be in the shot. Thus, the story of this character, the fictitious owner of this building, patrolling her 'home' with her majestic pet was created. It was then a question of making sure that she was in motion, walking during the shot... I don't tend to shoot models looking directly at the camera. I prefer to be a bystander shooting a 'scene'.

Editing

Image was stitched using PTGui from 7 images in total - a 2x3 grid with the main model pic in the middle. Some work was done with minor colour grading, cloning out 'price-tags' and labels hanging from some of the objects. Lighting balance was adjusted slightly in Lightroom.

In my camera bag

On shoots like this, my Pentax 645Z, a 55mm f2.8, a 90mm f2.8 and a 120mm f4. Surprisingly, I tend to shoot a lot of images with a wide field of view but use stitching rather a wide angle lens to achieve it. 2 x Elinchrom Quadras, 3 x Octa soft boxes, Lightools grids, a whole load of stands, my California sun-bounce adapted lighting pole, lots of clips, light temperature adjusting gels and my Pinterest moodboards at hand within my iPad.

Feedback

The ABSOLUTE key to this shoot is great team of people collaborating, each applying their specific skills. In this case, we had 2 models, a hair stylist, a makeup artist, 1 assistant, the milliner, the stylist who was the designer of the outfits and one amazing location. A stylist is an absolute MUST unless you have great styling skills and interest. Nothing worse than a shoot containing fashion elements styled by someone who has no interest in fashion. I do not classify myself as a 'fashion photographer' but I do love having fashion elements in my images as part of the scene. The entire organising of the shoot was done by the stylist / clothing designer who had also sourced a huge amount of accessories some of which had been sent from Europe just for the shoot. So much work had gone into the shoot and I felt a huge amount of pressure walking into the location. It presented so many options, too many that I had spent the first 30 mins wandering around in awe. I then realised that I had to lead the shoot and deliver some images for all involved. Fortunately, I had agreed a story idea with the stylist beforehand and the preparation helped greatly to deliver images even when I felt that the shoot was moving in a different direction due to circumstances outside my control.

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cheng-han

cheng-han

Cheng Han - The Artist's House-39

Shot as part of an editorial shoot for Joanne Fleming design, a wedding dress designer in a converted monastery built in 1379! CREDITS Gowns ... Read more

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow cheng-han

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Shot as part of an editorial shoot for Joanne Fleming design, a wedding dress designer in a converted monastery built in 1379!

CREDITS
Gowns ...
Read more

Share photos. Enter contests to win great prizes.
Earn coins, get amazing rewards. Join for free.