Helen Stephens Photoshoot

Helen and I had three quarters of an hour to shoot these on a rooftop balcony in London. I knew as soon as I saw it I wanted to create something with a Mediterranean feel and mostly the weather co-operated.

I am a complete sucker for redheads, just look at how the sunlight has brought out the colour.

Meanwhile in a more shady location we get a more gentle lighting.

Exposure can be tricky, hard brights and often deep shadows. I opted to keep the image above on the lighter end of exposure because I liked the fair skin. Dropping slightly darker would be another option to bring out the hair colour.

Using the patterns on the floor to create an interesting foil for Helen's organic posing.

Now, as I said at the beginning I knew what I wanted from this location and it was these three shots. The idea of a sun-kissed girl lying by the poolside, maybe at some Italian villa.

All the skies in the images are straight from camera, you can see I was a bit let down in this last image as it clouded over briefly. I like the darker blues in the previous two images. Of course if I known I was going to be shooting these I could have used a blue tinted graduated filter and/or polariser to help with the skies.

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