(Tash on the beach - February 2010)

Occasionally I like to get the hell out of the clubs (shooting-wise) and do something different. I’m not much of a studio head, so usually if a girl needs some sort of comp card or modeling photos done, I’m looking for locations. I guess it’s because I like to think with the whole frame and not just the part of it with the main subject in it. Studios seem fairly confining to me, and require way too much (in my opinion…opinion, if you shoot studio and love it, that’s fine) production support to pull anything worthwhile off. Costume/wardrobe changes, a fleet of assistants, and so on. 

For me, location shooting is less work since you usually have a key light to work with already (the sun) which actually becomes more of a fill as the day goes on. And no studio or Photoshop wizardry can replicate “magic hour”. The image above I shot right around magic hour. It was actually a spur-of-the-moment phone call and I needed to try out an idea, so there we were. Truth be told I had just got done shooting a Robbie Rivera set at Space, and was still feeling a little under the weather. But I figured some ocean air would help. So Tash and I went to the beach around 41st Street and got to work. 

The beach as you go further north is actually a good place to do some basic shooting like this. Technically the City does require permits, and even though we weren’t shooting commercially, it would have been hard to explain that it was just for the hell of it with my 580 on a stick, diffuser, remotes, and a girl rolling in the surf. But, if you’re in the less-utilized part of the beach, no one really cares if you keep it simple.

And actually, that’s kind of my ethos with any sort of photo project. Keep it simple. I’ll leave the overproduction to Martin Hannett. There’s a few millon square miles of land on this rock we live on, and one of those is bound to work for a project, in my mind. And the light is always there if you know how to use it. Plus it’s more fun that way. Being on location almost forces you to strip it down. I don’t shoot much in the way of fashion for money, but I’d like to think I could pull off something worthy of the trades if with a few portable strobes, a helper monkey, the subject, and a decent MUA. Again, not to knock the studio, but I encourage anyone who shoots fashion or editorial to get out of the house once in awhile. Four walls and some funny backdrops can only go so far, no matter what your lighting kit or creative repertoire is…