Recently I have been refining a couple of processes to make things smoother. One such process is to have a quick video chat with any model I haven’t worked with before. I contacted Aya L’Storm for a quick shoot at Wimbledon Common, I had shot Aya L’Storm a couple of times while performing with The Risquettes but this, would be a single model shoot.
During the video chat, we discussed the shoot, social distancing rules for both of us and I also sent a few pictures as a mood board. As a first, I also sent a map with a route of the area we would be walking through, with a few instructions in case we meet some wildlife.
As usual, I was extremely early so sat at the bus stop watching a Bond film on my phone. This was totally unrelated to the shoot as we were not going to be infiltrating a villains lair, hearing a monologue then blowing the place up.
Aya arrived by bus and not sadly not in an Aston Martin DB5, so putting the Bond metaphors away we started to walk towards the lakes. We chatted about how the pandemic had affected us over the past year and soon arrived at our first stop. I did say during the video chat that my first priority was the health and safety of the model so true to my word the first thing I asked Aya to do was to walk into the branches of a tree.
I wanted to try out all my lenses again with the Sony α7 III so my backpack was quite heavy but it allowed me to get a variety of shots. I was itching to use my Sony 85mm f1.8 lens again for the first set, then swapped to my Canon 24-105mm f4 for a series of ‘walking towards the camera’ shots. This was to test the tracking of the Sony α7 III. Some of the shots missed the eye but I put this down to the Canon lens being nailed to the Sony with the Sigma adaptor. It still got some excellent shots though.
Aya continued to walk so I followed, we moved further up along the edge of the lake. While chatting and walking I am always on the lookout for interesting things to shoot along the way. Aya noticed collections of logs stacked up throughout the walk, we also came across a patch of what looked like pigeon feathers in one particular spot. We looked around and could not see any pigeons just a lot of Dog walkers. I misspoke and called them dog warmers instead, Aya was in favour of warming dogs with blankets instead of my suggestion of warming them with fire. One particular collection of logs was a great seat for Aya to sit on for the above shots.
Moving closer to the lake I wanted a shot of Aya standing on the bank. I first checked the area was stable for Aya to walk on. I know it would have made a great shot for one of us to plummet headfirst into the lake but that would have been the end of the shoot and possibly my camera.
Moving further into the wood we tried more ‘walking away and back again’ shots while watching out for more dog warmers. For these shots, I used the Sony 85mm and the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8, the Sigma at 200mm gave me a lot of range for the shots as well as compressing the background.
We had a break at the Windmill for a socially distant cup of hot chocolate... One each, of course, I didn’t have a straw long enough for both of us.
Moving down to another lake, I had expected a bevvy of squirrels to assault me for a bag of nuts. This time, not one squirrel was in sight. That’s the last time I visit Tescos for these ungrateful Sciuridae.
Aya had also brought along a couple of fans to swing around. This was going to mean I would need to up the shutter speed to ensure there is no blurring as the fans move. I know that Wimbledon Common is on a designated flight path so it may have been possible the fan waving could have attracted a passing plane. Not wanting a plane wheel to the back of the head I made sure any fan waving commenced in deep parts of the forest.
There were more dog warmers around and it was getting busy so decided to call it a draw. We also noticed there seemed to be a storm coming along from the North. We grabbed a quick cup of socially distant cup of tea ( two of them ) and walked back to the bus stop, dodging the odd snowflake.
I really enjoyed this shoot, it was good to get out again, get creative and have some generally insane banter.
Aya L’Storm is a Burlesque performer, choreographer and dancer with The Risquettes, a Cabaret/burlesque dance troupe based in Surrey/London.