Meet Miss Donegal 2013, Orlagh McGee. The Donegal lass took the title this year and entered the prestigious Miss Ireland. Unfortunately she didn’t win the main competition, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying the experience and having a great time at it. She got signed to Assets Agency also with the competition. Orlagh dropped down to me for this shoot before the big final with make-up artist, Julie Caulfield. Julie herself is no stranger to the blog here. She has done Hair & Make-up for me on numerous shoots now…. as well as done a spot of modelling.
It was a very last minute shoot now that I think of it. I think there was only a day or two from organising it to shooting it. We had a cancellation for a portfolio shoot slot and Julie got in touch with Orlagh to come down. Due to the short period of time, Orlagh styled her self for the shoot and brought a load of stuff down. Here are the best shots.
I particularly like the shot above for two main reasons. The first being that Orlagh looks fantastic, from post and the “hint of the squint” expression. Secondly, I like the lighting setup I am trying out here, it’s the backlight look. This is where basically the light at the back is a few stops brighter than the main light in front and wraps around the model. It gives a slightly bleached out look, which I think suits the image.
Below is the same setup, only with an outfit change and in black and white. I kept the shot above in colour as the red really pops against the white. Likewise, the shot below was converted to black and white as I like the contrast with the black hair and black underwear against the pale skin and white background.
An interesting part of this shoot was in working with some showgirl costumes as shown below. Julie has recently started a sideline business called “Love Jewels“. From her blurb, “VEGAS SHOWGIRL costumes, RIO carnival costumes,Custom made dance costumes. A huge array of fantastic jewels and sparkles.Based in Dublin.All pieces available for purchase or hire”. She needed to get a few pics of some of the outfits for FaceBook, so today was a great time to start.
This particular piece matched Orlagh’s black underwear. The piece itself is fairly fantastic. At first glance it gives you a Victoria’s Secret vibe. You can see another piece on a shoot with Sinead Duffy (coming soon)
Below is a quick behind the scenes shot of one of the looks, taken on my iPhone. It shows Orlagh on my Cyclorama and a basic two light system that I was trying for this particular shot. It consisted on a key light from the 70cm Octobox high right and fill light from the 135cm Octobank on the left. This particular set up was not the ones use to make the final image, but it gives you a quick look at how they can be used.
As usual, any comments or questions, you can leave them below.