Flour Girl

In order to have a moderate chance of achieving some useable photos from a studio shoot involving flour you need to a) plan in advance and workout how you are going to get the shots you want ; b) find an enthusiastic and willing model; and c) in the case of this shoot, find a studio where you can make a huge mess and the owner doesn’t mind!

…so to business…

The Plan

I went to the Festival Européen de la Photo de Nu in Arles last year and the main poster promoting the Festival was of a nude model spinning, in what the photographer, (Frenchman Olivier Valsecchi), called “Dust”.   He had a set of 10 large square-framed prints in the exhibition and to put it mildly I was inspired…however I wanted to do things slightly differently.  My images, below, were shot in a 3:2 ratio, thus allowing more left and right movement for the model; and rather than having an out-of-shot assistant throw “dust” at her, she herself grabbed great handfuls of flour and threw it as hard as she could as she spun round the studio.  And rather than one single overhead light, I used two lights: on her right side was big beauty dish 7 foot above her, pointing downwards at 45 degrees and the other on her left was a 6 foot tall softbox with a very fast flash head in it.

The Model

The model was/is Raphaella McNamara, a 5’ 6” bundle of fearless and undying energy.   She worked and worked…. and then some….  Being a ballet dancer she moved with all the skill and grace that a trained dancer has in spadefuls.  Thank you, Raphaella, for your spirit.

The Studio

I used The Works Studio at Croxton, (on the A428 15 miles west of Cambridge, UK) and the owner, Martyn Rayner, was really kind to let us make such a mess.  There was only two bags of flour involved and I managed to sweep up 95% of it quite quickly….but.. the other 5% was everywhere and took an hour to hoover up.  It gets everywhere, hair, clothes, camera, shoes, walls, ceilings etc.

Was it worth it? Absolutely – click on the images and see them larger.

Flour Girl – 1

Flour Girl – 2

Flour Girl – 3

Flour Girl – 4

Here’s a link to Festival Européen de la Photo de Nu and here’s a link to the Works Studio.