Little Red Dress – Exploring the Forest

Yi-Ling and I have both come to enjoy exploring (a nice word for purposely getting lost in) the forests and footpaths around Guildford.  Barely 10 minute walk and the hustle of the town becomes quiet and tranquil woodland and farmland. Given the ever shorter days and impending winter weather, this time we set out not to wander aimlessly, but with a photo assignment. It was sunday, bored of work in the lab, the sun was out and it hadn’t rained over night, so, off we went.

The little red dress; I had seen it before, both in Michelle’s (not so limited) wardrobe and in many of the photos squirrelled away in my “Inspiration” folder. I had, to some degree a shot in mind and the weather was complementing. Very shallow depth of field, the red dress popping from the woodland and the sun penetrating the trees. Given that I don’t own (nor will I likely ever afford to own) and medium or large format digital back, it was down to the trusty Brenizer Method to achieve the bigger sensor effect.

Despite the cold, despite my “in need of more practice” directing skills, I feel Michelle really pulled these off!

Little Red Dress

Model: Yi-Ling Lai
Since I call Yi-Ling a Little Explorer, we decided to dedicate a shoot to the idea.
This image is composed of 74 (85mm 1.8) exposures stitched in the style of the Brenizer Method.

This second image is composed of 88 (85mm 1.8) exposures stitched in the style of the Brenizer Method. The more challenging part here was suspending the key light (a softbox) in the tree. See the BTS shot from my mobile below!

BTS shot from my mobile, but from the RHS as the softbox was mostly hidden behind the branch from the shooting position.