mirror images // creative work

Confession Time: I have a hate/love relationship with my flash.

It can be so easy to disregard it. To say with loftiness,  “Flash? No. I’m a natural light photographer.“

But I think that just because I don’t know how to use my flash to the best of my abilities, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t learn. I’ve been in situations where a basic knowledge of flash has been so very important – fill flash on a harsh sunny day, bad church lighting – and I’ve seen results with the flash where I’ve been like “How do they do that? What are they doing? How can I do that? How do I make my flash work like my bff?” And I am tired of feeling like my camera works me, when actually, I am making my camera work. I know how to use my camera. I know how to shoot angles. I know how to take a great photograph.

I just have to learn how to use my damn flash, the way it’s meant to be used.

Practice makes perfect.

Here are a few of my favourite final shots. I was really brutal, cutting them down to the ones where I would be proud to show off. Since this was only for me, I could cull to my heart’s content. A few made the cut.

A few that made the entire freezing cold shoot worth it.

What was I going for? The initial idea was “Mirror Images.” I wanted a dark model and a white/pale model. I wanted to dress them exactly alike. Hair, outfits, make-up, accessories. I wanted to pose them in ways that woudl reflect softness, light, shadows yet this afinity for the environment.

I may have been in over my head.

But it was such a learning experience. A freaking challenge. Where I do consider it the biggest failure of my career yet, but for these final shots, I would try yet again.

There are a few things I would still change, if I could. I’m a perfectionist. But overall, I’m very happy with these. I really like the first three black&white ones, as I saw the entire session in black and white in my head. I wanted to play with shadows and light. I don’t think I really put what was in my head into a photo, but what we did end up with was interesting. The last shot, in colour, was because their expressions, the colours of the graffiti their skin tones – they just worked together.

In hindsight, wardrobe is so important. I wish we had found a pair of white jeans, but all we could come up with was a pair of grey jeans. Which actually looked pretty good. Then I wish I could have put Trudy in a lighter pair of jeans for contrast, but we were already on our way. The moccasins were amazing – gotta love my cultural connections. But if I had put Trudy in a lighter pair of jeans, the black moccasins might have stood out a bit more.

The best part was my models. Trudy and I have worked together many, many times. She’s my go-to girl when I have a new idea in my head. She has a fierce beauty that is so easy to capture, and a softness that is ever elusive, which makes it so much better when I do get random glimpses of it in my work. Charlotte, the blondie, and I have been friends forever but we have never worked together. She was great. She was up for anything, had a ton of great ideas, and was a constructive partner – which I almost bit her head off for (sorry, Char). She had all these ideas and I was like “Trudy, shut her up. I’m thinking.”

Thank G we’re all good friends. Because I’m a rude menace sometimes.

The Details:

Models: Trudy John and Charlotte Mihalicz

Hair & Make-Up: Shayla Weisbrot