Heart of the Ocean (Patreon)

There are two important points to this story about Ifa Brand I'd like to share with you. 

Ifa initially did professional modeling for about 3 years if I recall correctly, but had a lot of self doubt. Her body was not, to her mind, an ideal model body and se had all kind of self doubt. 

Until Playboy contacted her to do a cover shot.At that point she decided that if she was good enough for playboy she was also good enough for herself, which made her self-confidence go through the roof.

For 12-16 month she did an abundance of work, shot with anyone who was interested in booking her, including workshops etc.

And then she started doubting her abilities as a model, as the majority of the work she did did not result in good pictures. This is where I came into the story:

Ifa had found a select few photographers she wanted to shoot with simply to create good images so she could get her confidence back.I've later discovered model burnout is not that uncommon for models who only chase money (not different from any other job really).

Anyway we met one early morning in Copenhagen and when to a playground right next to a new apartment complex and shot image 3+4 in "the boat".

Then we had breakfast and drove down to an old factory an hour or so away, where I had gotten permission to shoot at. We shot image 5-8 using natural light only.

The place btw. was so littered with pigeon shit that I had to throw away a picnic blanket I used to put my camera bag and Ifa's clothes on to avoid them getting dirty.(That's a good trick if you do location work btw. A fleece picnic blanket that's waterproof and consequently windproof greatly aids when making outdoor location shoots or as here shots in really dirty places.)

Then we drove back to Copenhagen as Ifa had a special request:She is a huge Titanic fan (not just the movie, the ship and history surrounding it) and she asked if we could make a picture of her wearing a Heart of the Ocean replica like in the movie where Leonardo is drawing Kate Winslet "like the French girls".

 I agreed and started the motions but quickly stopped again.First I don't like to do one-on-one replicas of things, secondly the lighting on the original scene is not that good in my opinion.So I decided to Hollywood'ize it and make it my own:

I brought out my large Fresnel spot (It's a Hensel brand but I expect the actual Lens ø44cm, is from Arri). The Fresnel because of the lens design has a very soft falloff so plenty of light on the face and a soft but rapid falloff of the light towards the lower part of the body. And it gives this impression of intimacy as normally light only behaves this way when it is really close to the model.

And decided to shoot with my Canon 50mm f. 0.95 lens as this has a dreamy and creamy look I associate with older movies and large format photography giving it a vintage feel.

I also flipped Ifa the other way for good measure, and have received an abundance of comments that I did it "the wrong way" 😳That's the two first images in the set.

So here are the things I believe you should take away from this:We all need to work with someone who allow us to live up to our full potential.

• It is definitely worth booking a professional model for enough time for you to create something truly awesome, even if you are not accustomed to working with Pro's.
• And the same goes for models: Having Kick-ass photos in their portfolio make it much easier to get paid bookings onwards as photographers can see what they are truly capable off.

When you are tempted to replicate something, by all means go ahead to learn how the light setup was or whatever, but then make it your own:

I hear quite often from models I have shot with several times that some photographers book them and then try to recreate an image I have done previously with that model.

While I'm flattered that people try to replicate what I do, I also feel it is a little bit sad for them: What they do will always be a copy and frequently it won't be as good or have the same nerve, if for no other reason than the model knows it's a copy so she will lack enthusiasm.I don't mind the copying, but I'd rather see another view on the same theme and something bit more original - and so does the model. Doing the same image over and over again becomes boring.

About a year after I shot these images with Ifa she got to the same conclusion and pretty much stopped modeling for others. 

Now she does self portraiture mostly on Polaroids and she does some pretty amazing stuff in my opinion.

And it's her unique vision...