Bahrain Top model, Season 3 Jan issue

FACT MAGAZINE

So here we are in December down at the tree of life taking photos of our 8 competitors for

 Bahrain Top model 2011.

All the girls are beautiful, from aged 16 to 26.

The concept of the shoot, was to photograph this in an iconic place in Bahrain,

 that everyone would recognize.

The girls were to stylize their own clothes, make up was to be simple and natural, hair as well. 

The hair and make up were done by Elie and Jean Salon at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. 

I thought of an idea a couple days before the shoot.  I wanted to add some kind of sense of 

life and freedom to the scene. 

White birds came to mind. I thought if the girls were releasing the birds in one of their 

shots and for front cover we could give that feeling. 

I contacted many friends here in Bahrain to see if there was such thing as homing pigeons or some type of bird that I could rent, or borrow. No such luck... I was told to check down at the markets. So off I went with my son to find 20 white pigeons, or doves what ever was cheaper.  I went to a few markets and low and behold after the third market, I found a man who has an avery at his home, and has quite a few white pigeons, resonabley priced at 1 BD a bird.... who knew.  I also found the coolest old bird cage for 3BD 10 bucks... Excellent prop.

I picked them up the following day, all of them in one cage.... It was quite the ordeal taking them back to my house, in the back of my RAV4.

The following morning, car packed, with all the equipment, Honda generator the new Honda eui 20 with 2000wats of power, perfect for running two lights. Soft boxes, beauty dish,  A large fan, two lighting assistants (Ross Martin) and (Bryson Kent). Lens, strobes, cords extension cords, I think pretty much most of my studio, and 20 birds in 2 cages... Yes the car was stuffed. It is a long drive down to the location,  20 minutes, in Bahrain that is a long drive. I did not want to be saying while I was out there,    I should have brought. There is no time to go home. 

We made our way down to the tree of life, low and behold a bus full of tourists. Can you imagine, this was going to be a challenging day. 

We waited for all the girls to arrive, which took more time than we imagined. Some of the models had never been down to the Tree of Life. So, Yes were tourists too.

This first photo on this blog was a photo I took a few months ago early in the morning. The government had done an archeological dig there and it looked fabulous with a lot of texture to the ground.  I really wanted to do a shot with all the girls up front for cover. But when we got there it was all filled in.

Jasmet

Hannah climbed up in the tree for this shot. Lighting was a profoto D1 light with a beauty dish light modifer. With an added reflector to lift the light a little more under her hair and neck.

Hannah 

Kaylie

Anna

Anna, Kayla, Natalia and Latifa were in the tree with speckled highlights and shadows from the sun casting shadows from the leaves. I had to light this enough to rid of the shadows.






                    

The light I had perched on a C stand to keep it from blowing over as it was a little windy that day. The generator is a bit heavy and a bit awkward between the branches and it would have been quite a challenge to use a soft box at this shoot. Thanks to Ross and Bryson for all the lugging that day. Jumping in and out of the tree like a couple monkeys.

Natalia

Latifa

Lousia and  Monica had picked a location where there was quite a bit of sun on them

most of the lighting used here was reflected with a silver reflector.

Louisa 

Monica

Tabia

  Tabea's photo was taken a couple days later, the stylist and myself went down with out the car full of lighting gear, I had brought my strobes and a reflector.  Birds too. It was really windy that day, we had to tuck out of the wind to get this shot.
I thought to myself how easy and great that was with out all the gear. Although you do see a bit of shadow cast off Tabea's right leg from the flash which I had off camera to the left, reflector to the right.

The girls had the opportunity to let a pigeon free, most of the birds didn't want to leave, they hung around and some of the locals were climbing up in the tree to collect the birds. This added a bit of difficulty with the shooting as we kept having to ask them to stay out of the back ground. 

This first photo on this blog was a photo I took a few months ago early in the morning. The government had done an archeological dig there and it looked fabulous with a lot of texture to the ground.  I really wanted to do a shot with all the girls up front for cover. But when we got there it was all filled in.

Now to light for the front cover, it was 2:00 in the afternoon. I had set up two lights for this shot one on either side. I  locked my camera down on a tripod, as the challenge to have the birds in flight and all 8 of the girls looking good in one photo seemed to be too chancy for the front cover, so I took a few shots of them posing and then we counted to three and I took a few shots of the birds being released.  Later in photoshop, I merged three images together, to give a sense of freedom and flight. 

  

Stutter speed I set at 250 as I didn't want much Ambient light to show up in the back ground. I wanted the image to look like it was shot in the evening.

I am sure the pigeons found they're way back to the market if anyone needs a white pigeon for a shoot. 

Talk to Mohamed at the Isa town market.