A friend runs a vintage clothing shop in Dorchester (Dorset UK), and I suggested to her that we should do a few shoots of the clothes for her publicity purposes and for Arcangel Images (my agency).
Mary agreed, so here are some of the shots which resulted – all with Mary modelling. I’d hoped to use film on the first set of shots, but the light was so poor I ended up at ISO 2000 on the 60D, and didn’t have film above ISO 100 in the bag.
We’d asked Mary to find a black cape and some red shoes for these shots – this isn’t easy as Mary has hundreds if not thousands of pieces of clothing in stock.
They were planned as a blurry, slow shutter speed set of ‘running’ shots, but as always, the planned shots weren’t the best ones of the session. This one conveys movement even without a very slow shutter speed, and the dark upper frame and lighter lower frame seem to work. Lensbaby, out of focus (but it doesn’t seem to matter) on an Olympus ELP3.
Just a bit of movement blur here – enough to avoid a ‘static’ look.
Back to the 60D and more or less what I’d hoped for. As it turns out the cape and red of the shoes overwhelm the slight movement anyway. The swirl of red on Mary’s leg is the lining of the cape – sheer luck!
A parting shot (no pun intended) from this short session – Mary’s hand on the end of the staircase. Taken as an afterthought, I think this one is the best of them all. EPL3 + lensbaby. I’d like to thank Mary for her patience, having run up and down these stairs too many times….
This second batch are few from a larger set taken on a different day in winter. We were all a bit too cold to be taking pictures to be honest so I was glad to get just a few.
Shoes and Skirt
Taken with the 60D and the flip out screen at ground level, vignette and washed out colour in Photoshop.
Gloves and Dress
An embroidered dress and kid gloves – given a cold blue tint and vignette to go with my memory of a cold day.
I’ll post a few more from shoots of Mary’s clothes in a subsequent post as we’ve done a few this year.
As always these are taken for the book cover market, and all comments, critiques and questions are welcome.
All images have a signed model release, and Mary is happy for them to appear on the blog.
If you’re interested in any more of Mary’s vintage clothing, the link to her Facebook page is here.
Hope you like them and they give you some creative ideas for your photography.
28mmf2 
Lovely sets–the first has that dark, sexy noir mood….nothing says sexy like red pumps…or mystery like a black cape…
While cooler in tone, the second still makes me think of mystery novels, perhaps more of the English gentry mode rather than the Sam Spade of the first.
Thanks for the comment! It’s interesting to hear what pictures make other people think of. I suppose subconsciously that’s what I was trying for, but certain subjects and light just take me down a particular route in post processing.