It seems a little odd, given this post is going up in early December, to be posting a project with a photoshoot done with inflatables on a beach during a heatwave, but hey-ho. On a previous trip to Wales, I (Ben) tried to add some more shots to the "Inflate-Deflate" project with a new set of underwater, daylight pics. It sort-of worked; even though the sea was ridiculously calm, there was a lot of peer-pressure against not only going in the sea with inflatables, but even having them at all.
The heatwave in August meant it was nice enough to go on the beach early in the morning when it was very quiet; indeed, it was getting too hot by mid-afternoon for us to even stay on the beach, so a morning of paddling and play on the sand then going somewhere shady and cooler after lunch was ideal.
Every other time in the last three years we'd been to this beach, the sea was flat as a puddle and clear as gin. Typically, the morning we rocked up with all the gubbins for the shoot, an incoming storm front out in the Irish Sea meant there were waves, and the water was full of swirling sand and seaweed, not terrific for the sorts of shots I had planned.
Still, having dragged all the stuff down from the car park, it seemed a shame to not to try and get some photographs. So whilst Amy, Younger and Middle Childs had a swim, me and Elder Child set to pumping up the large, transparent, multi-coloured ball which I'd been intending to use for the underwater shots.
I really like this toy as a photography prop; I first used one of these in a fashion shoot at Uni, and you can get some really interesting effects with them.
Going for a slightly abstract close-up. I really liked the effect of the colours on the sand, when backlit.
The ones I was happiest with were shooting through the ball. What's more, almost all these were shot using a phone, as I hadn't planned to use the SLR, prioritising the underwater pics.
I ended up sending a few of these shots off for an Open Call too. As another variation on the "Inflate-Deflate" project, I think there's mileage with some more experimentation with these. The above one almost looks like a photoshopped filter over the top of a pic with the beach huts.
A fun half-hours worth of pics resulted. We probably could have done more, but the wind was picking up and Elder Child was getting tired of chasing the ball around the sand every time a gust caught it. Plus a little girl from a family who'd set up nearby was looking enviously at it, and we were getting death-glares off her mother who I heard explaining why, no, inflatables in the sea were a dangerous idea darling, etc. In any case, I thought it would probably be a good idea to get in the sea, so photos achieved, I left Elder Child boredly deflating the ball, and went to help Amy with her own underwater shots in the sea...
No comments:
Post a Comment