apolloflux

Location fashion shoot

This was my second shoot with Jorja, who lives in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside, so locations that aren't fields or forests are a little limited. We started the shoot in a disused barn near where she lives, just using natural light. but then jumped in the car to go to this location. I'm not sur why I had packed the black suit, as it's not something I would normally take to a shoot in a rural location, bu...

Photoset Preview

Last Saturday I had the a fabulous first shoot with the stunning Karolin. We shot a range of outfits in my main black and white styles, plus some colour lingerie and implied nude, but it's this set that we are loving the most. Look out for it on here next month!

Photoset - Black and White Nude

Last summer a client booked me to shoot some black and white nudes of her, but she asked if I could do them in a style that was softer than my usual black and white style. I loved them so much that I then used the same lighting setup and editing style on a few subsequent shoots.

This set features the stunning Emma, who sadly has had to cut back significantly on her modelling due to a change in career, which also has her out of the country most of the time. 

I lit these using ...

Photoset - Wet look in red

A throwback set from my second shoot with the stunning Chloe. I'm hoping to get another shoot booked in with her soon!

These were shot using a continuous LED light with octabox. I popped on a mood playlist and Chloe just "got into it" whilst I shot. I had the camera set to continuous drive mode, and I moved around Chloe shooting whilst she moved. As I have mentioned in a previous post, this style of shooting can create an above average number of duff images - either out of focus or poor...

Photoset - Suntan and Blue Jeans

Not only is Sian one of my absolute favourite models to shoot with, from messages I have received from Patrons it would seem that she is a favourite on here too. Due to work, she was out of the country for six months from last September, but we managed to get a shoot booked in for just three days after she landed back in the UK. 

I knew Sian was coming back with an amazing suntan, and I wanted to make the most of it for some of our sets of images. Sian had expressed concern about h...

My Suicide Girls Debut

I have been a fan of the Suicide Girls concept for years. I always loved the way it gave models with a certain look and style a platform and a community. Back when it first launched more than 20 years ago, models with lots of tattoos and piercings were very much part of a subculture that did not have mainstream appeal. Of course, over the years that alternative look has become far more mainstream & SG has grown & grown. I gather that these days it's becoming harder and harder to find ...

Photoset - Red with Katie

On Friday I had my second shoot with the beautiful Katie Cooper, so thought it would be nice to post some images from our first shoot together last August. We did have another shoot booked in for December, but sadly I had to cancel as I felt on the verge of burning out. It's something I have to cope with from time to time. It's rarely a tiredness thing, more a mental creative thing where my brain refuses to come up with ideas, and I hate to just shoot "more of the same" if the model is making...

Teaser shot for upcoming set

I know from messages I have received that Sian is rather popular among some of my Patrons. Sian has a job that takes her out of the country for lengthy periods of time, and so I had to wait for eight months between our previous shoot and this one, which took place just three days after Sian arrived back in the UK.

We shot a denim jeans set, working up to topless, and then a topless and implied nude set on a red paper roll backdrop, both aiming to make her tan lines a feature of the imag...

Photosets - studio shoot with Tayla

I recently had a very pleasant request from one of my Patrons, asking if I could post more images of Tayla. These images are from my first shoot with Tayla last summer, and we have since had five more shoots. Although these sets are standard studio shots, I have probably done more experimental work with Tayla than with any other model, as she is more than happy to come over for the day, just to shoot and help me try out new lighting styles or modifiers. Models like that are like gold dust!&nb...

Photoset - Motion Blur

At the end of my very first shoot with the stunning Sian, pretty much this time last year, we had a small amount of time for a quick experimental set. I was keen to try some motion blur with a studio strobe and a long shutter speed.

These were shot with my Interfit Honey Badger with softbox and modelling light turned on, using the following camera settings:

Aperture: f/20

Shutter speed: varied between 0.5 sec to...

Photoset - More Creative Lighting Fun

After the first set we decided to change things up and bring in more lights. So for the first six images above, the lighting set up is exactly the same as the previous set I posted, except I have now introduced a pair of Luxceo P7RGB RGBW Light Wand mounted vertically on light stands, one either side and to the front of Tilly. On Camera left the light is set to blue, and on the right to pink.

This set took longer to get rig...

Creative Lighting Photoset

This was my second shoot with the stunning Tilly, and she was more than happy to help me experiment with some different lighting techniques and my new fog machine.

I usually shoot in my dining room at home, but it isn't possible to black out that room, so this time we were in my master bedroom (I struggle to sleep without complete darkness so the room has blackout blinds).

These were shot with just two lights, both continuous LED lights. Behind Tilly, I placed my 2023-03-12 10:30:45 +0000 UTC View Post

Photoset - natural light black and white

I recently had the pleasure of welcoming the lovely Lianna to my home studio for the day. Lianna has recently returned to modelling after a lengthy break, and is slowly building her portfolio. She was a natural in front of my camera, and we covered a range of styles, starting with his natural light set. I will be posting more of her in the future, as I work through the edits.

Photoset - Orange Rollneck

Megan came back to my place recently for our third shoot together, and brought with her a top that it seems most photographers wants to shoot her in.

I put my own spin on it, shooting on a grey paper roll backdrop using my Interfit Honey Badger and a Pixapro 130 cm parabolic umbrella. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop, and toned using a set I have saved in my Photoshop Library, that I created some time ago with the assistance of Infinite Tools' Infinite Color Panel.

Photoset - Based On The Novel by Stephen King

This coming Saturday I have my first shoot with Bunnie since June 2021, and I thought it would be nice to resurrect this set from that shoot. We had been sent a handful of tees by the fabulous Colin at The Quartermasters in Folkstone, and thought a "Bunnie lying on LPs" set might look quite cool. So I popped up into our semi-converted loft to look for a Stephen King paperback. Bunnie took one look at our dumping ground and decid...

Photoset - NSFW Portraits in Colour

I had a few requests for more images of the beautiful Florence, and I have just finished editing this set.

Again, shot using a studio strobe plus 130cm parabolic umbrella, and then toned in Lightroom and photoshop.

Photoset - sheer/nude set

It has been quite some time since I last shot with the fabulous Chesca. Last year I learned an important lesson - it doesn't matter how much I love shooting with a model, too many shoots in a short period of time can lead to me running out of ideas. And with things being so busy now, shooting just for the sake of it is a luxury I can rarely treat myself to anymore. However, since our last shoot, my style has evolved quite a lot and Chesca was keen to do a set in a similar style to the one I s...

Action sequence

Action shots can be tough. I have tried the "removal of top" thing a number of times, with varying degrees of success (usually unsuccessful). Quite often the frames captured look awkward or unflattering. However, this time I feel it worked perfectly, and I love the way it ended with Sian smiling form ear to ear. In fact, my biggest challenge when shooting with Sian is often to get her to stop smiling!

Teaser video

My first shoot with Emma was in February 2022. During that time we only managed a few shoots because Emma underwent some surgery which took her away from modelling for a while. However, she is back and her confidence is soaring! She has a "page" on the recently launched Divine Models and she asked if I would be comfortable helping her shoot some new content, something with higher levels than we had shot prev...

"Red" nude photoset

A photoset from a shoot I did a while back with the fabulous Emma. These were shot using a continuous light with octabox. When I shoot this way I tend to put on a mood playlist and ask the model to get into the music and move to it. I then just fire away with my camera. We are therefore both moving a fair amount, as I move in close, or further away, change my angles, sometimes even climbing onto a stool. 

It does tend to produce some really awful shots - out of focus, poorly compos...

Some lovely news

This morning I woke up to find I had been placed third in the Fashion/Beauty (Amateur) category of the Monochrome Photography Awards, with an image I had submitted of the stunning Sian. What makes it even more pleasing is that the image is one of my all-time favourite ones that I have made. And Sian is one of my absolute favourite models to shoot with.

This set is from a day I spent shooting with Sian back in April. It was our second shoot together, and I had planned a day shooting Sian...

Photoset In Colour

For me as a photographer, a large portion of 2022 was spent developing my black and white style. It was something that I had struggled with for quite some time, and then back towards the end of 2012 something clicked. 

When I shot this set, I had intended to edit it in black and white - when I do this, I convert to black and white in Lightroom and then do all of my retouching in black and white, which means there are no colour edits of the set. However, after I had done one of the ...

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my patrons. Thank you for your support in the short time I have been running this page. I have plenty of content lined up for the coming months, and many more shoots planned too.

I hope 2023 is full of success and happiness for you all.

Merry Christmas

Wishing all my patrons the happiest of seasonal greetings!

I don't tend to do many seasonal shoots, such as Halloween, Valentine's and Christmas, but I recently shot at the awe4some Burford Manor with the stunning Megan, and knowing that there was a Christmas tree there, she asked if we could do a quick set.

My equipment #1

I have received a few questions asking about the equipment I use for my shoots, so I thought I would space this out as a series of posts.

I have decided to start off with this, the Neewer Photography Professional Heavy Duty Tripod Dolly, as I honestly believe it is one of the most useful, and for me essential, items of equipment I have purchased (apart from camera, lenses, etc). In fact, I loved my first one so much that I ...

Photoset: Black and white sheer

From my recent shoot with the stunning Florence, using my standard set-up I use for most of my b&w sets: one studio flash with octabox plus a floor-level reflector to bounce some light up.

Photoset - Autumnal soft focus

This is a set I created with the stunning Chloe back at the beginning of October. We wanted an autumnal feel to the images, but due to the mild weather it was still too early for the trees to have lost their summer greenness, and neither of us wanted to wait another few weeks, when it would also be much colder, and not the greatest weather for a model to be wearing nothing but a sheer dress.

So to achieve the look we wanted I held a piece of sheer red fabric over the lens. This techniqu...

Vintage Playboy vibes photoset

I love the vintage Playboy style from the 1970s and early 1980s, with the soft focus and dreamy vibes. I think if I could shoot for any brand it would be Playboy, or Guess Jeans, so I have wanted to do some shoots in this style for quite some time, but also to use it as an experimental shoot, and try a few hacks that I had been wanting to try. I will explain in another post on my higher tier next month how I lit and shot this set, and I will also include a link to the Lightroom preset that I ...

Apologies

Apologies for my silence over the past week or so. I had three shoots in quick succession, one of which was a whole day location shoot which pretty much wiped me out, and then at the beginning of this past week I came down with a horrible flu thing that has knocked my flat. This is my first time at my PC since Monday evening, and I'm now stressing about being so far behind with my edits, as well as posting content on here and many other things. However, I've got plenty to post for you, some o...

Natural light set with Dominika

I have been collaborating with the stunning Dominika for almost four years. Our first shoot was a few days before Christmas back in 2018. I felt terrible - I had a stinking cold and I came very close to cancelling as I had to spend an hour on the train to get to her. I am so relieved that I didn't, as we very quickly hit it off and have worked together ever since. I have shot with Domi more than twenty times, a lot more than with any other model. She has a creative mind and has always been ke...