PHOTOGRAPHER/RETOUCHER: ASIA ASBERRY
MODEL: Aaron Reyes
SESSION DATE: jUNE 28, 2020
- TOOLS -
BODY: CANON 5D MARK III
LENS: CANON 24-70MM 2.8 II
Natural Light
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, Adobe Lightroom
Background
The #VogueChallenge was a challenge started during the summer of 2020. Photographers around the world were pushing themselves to take images like those you would normally see on the cover of the renowned fashion magazine and add the iconic serif “VOGUE” logo above the image.
IDEATION
The idea for my version of the Vogue Challenge came to me after seeing my parents’ vintage peacock chair in their basement. Over the last few years, peacock chairs have had a huge resurgence in popularity for photographers aiming to capture a more vintage feel for their shoots. I originally wanted to use a woman for this concept but decided to use my friend Aaron because my portfolio doesn’t feature nearly as many men as it does women. Aaron and I had also worked together in the past and I knew we’d work well together again.
Given that the peacock chair instantly gave the concept a more antique vibe, I wanted the entire concept to lean that way as well. To fully push this concept, I needed Aaron’s wardrobe to also match the dated feel.
After Aaron agreed to model for me, I sent him some inspiration from @diggysimmons who dresses in a similar fashion to what I was imagining from the shoot. My hopes were that he could use his Instagram to fully understand the vibe I was going for and try to match his wardrobe to it without having to purchase additional clothing.
PROCESS
One of my favorite types of settings to take pictures at are large, grassy fields. Luckily for me, there was a perfect field right across the street from my house that I loved to hang out at and that I knew would work perfectly. On the day of the shoot, Aaron and I dragged the peacock chair to the perfect spot out of the way of others, at a great angle facing the sun, and with a clean background.
I knew that simply posing with the plain chair would be visually bland so I brought along some faux plant stems and a faux fur pelt that I use as decor in my room to decorate the chair.
Challenges
Even though I chose 4:30pm to start our session, being that it was summer and we were in a clearing with no trees meant that we fell victim to extremely harsh (and hot) direct sunlight. We used the hard light to our advantage as much as we could but many times, we found ourselves waiting until the clouds covered up the sun so we could have more even light and and get a break from sweating bullets.
Retouching
The simplest part of the shoot was the retouching/editing. 99% of the editing was done in Lightroom and only involved lifting shadows and split toning to give a more warm color grade.
The remaining 1% was done in Photoshop and that involved adding the “VOGUE” text above Aaron’s head. I was able to find the Vogue font on dafont.com and simply placed the text on top of my favorite image from the shoot.
Final thoughts
Aaron’s wardrobe choice and ease in front of the camera really helped bring my vision to life. The session was pretty simple but the addition of the peacock chair provided a pop of visual interest that was very well-received by peers on social media. I am glad I decided to work with Aaron instead of a female model because it allowed me to get more practice posing men (which I desperately needed) and allowed me to diversify my portfolio.