"Bubble Gum" Photo Shoot with Ria

Hello everyone!

I had a quick shoot recently with Marione assisting and Ria modelling for the Canon EOS Photo five competition where the brief was portraiture and the photo had to feature bubble gum. Unfortunately, I only did one of the five briefs because I left it to the last minute so lesson learned. I'll enter again next year and won't do the same.

For the shot I was going for, I wanted Ria to pose in front of graffiti to give that "cool" factor wearing skates so this was a bit of a hard pose to do and I also used an orange gel attached to my flash to give that summer feel to it. We went to a park in Newtown first to have some practice with poses and so Ria could practice using the skates for a bit and blowing bubbles from the bubble gum. It was pretty funny cause we had to help Ria move around with the skates and try to stop her from falling. The following are just a few practice shots.

 

After some practice shots we headed off to a place not to far but still in Newtown where there was a colorful wall of graffiti which was exactly what I was looking for but the only problem I had with it was that the wall was a bit short and it was just off the main road (didn't want to attract too much attention). 

The following shots are used with an orange gel attached to my flash. There was no off-camera flash for this shoot. I initially wanted to do this but I wanted the shoot to be quick and setting up with all the flashes and stands would have taken a while to set up. Just to give you an idea of what I first planned to do here it is.

2min job of my plan made on Paint

 

Even though I didn't go with my original plan the photos turned out great and I was really happy with them and Ria did a great job, especially with the roller skates. Here are a few shots that from the shoot. 

  

After the shoot, I was trying to figure out which shots to upload to the comp cause I had a lot to pick from. I read the brief on the competition book again that I received and the portrait had to "convey a sense of character and personality" so take a guess at which photo I ended up submitting. 

If you haven't figured it out yet, I picked the last photo. The reason for this is that, you can clearly see her personality here. Ria is an outgoing and fun type of person and its evident to me in the photo. Plus the graffiti background adds to her personality too as she is a hip hop dancer. 

 Thanks for reading!