A R Harvey Blog

Best of Britain for Bonafide Magazine

A playful fashion story for this month's Bonafide magazine.

Jade suggested we feature several well known British stereotypes: City, Sloane, Geek, Rude Boy and Essex. For some reason I pictured them as heroic characters, dramatically bathed in the fiery rays of a dying sun. Around that time I was also admiring Robyn's music video "The Girl and the Robot." I decided to try a similar juxtaposition. By cross-lighting with red and blue light, it was very easy to amplify both shape and depth. Indeed, one could argue that the resulting pictures would not look too out of place in a graphic novel.

Models: Deimante and Ben S @ Oxygen.

Photographer: A R Harvey
Stylist: Jade Stavri
Makeup: Kaori Mitsuyasu
Hair: Soichi

Thanks everyone for your hard work!

Sundown in Victoria Park

Model: Daisy Jo Lucas.

Victoria Park has never struck me as a particularly good place to shoot: The landscape is flat and uninspiring, the trees are widely scattered; and when the sun shines everyone decides to crowd the same space. For all it's faults though it is convenient, just five minutes walk from my front door. In the past I have lost myself - and sometimes, my team - in the rolling hills of Hampstead Heath, where just walking to a location can take twenty minutes. One is rewarded though with a huge variety of pastoral backdrops. If you squint your eyes and filter out the rumble of distant traffic, you can transport yourself beyond the city to a vast wilderness untouched yet by man.

Last week I spent a day with actress Daisy Jo Lucas. We took some photos at my studio in Hackney then moved outside for a series of more natural shots. Victoria Park may on the whole be rather bland, but there is one tiny enclave of interest: The earth dips downward and the trees huddle against the sun. Above and to the west there is an open sky. Come evening the glow of dying sunlight floods the trees and kisses the ground.

I knew we wouldn't have long to get the shot so I packed light. Aside from my camera all I took was a white bounce board. Now that summer has arrived I am able to use natural light far more freely. There is a wonderful simplicity that comes with using the sun - the ratio between key and fill is almost entirely down to the distance one places the bounce board from the subject. Just one variable really. All that's left is to set a suitable exposure and do the best with what's given.

Even at sundown the sun is very strong. One trick is to use the sun as a back light, and turn the bounce light into a key:

Summertime in Victoria Park

 

Portrait of Jamie

>Sometimes I can take a photo and then sit on it for ages. This portrait of my housemate Jamie was shot last November during one of our legendary parties. It must have been around 3am, I think.

Anyway, I didn't get round to finishing the photo until this evening. I retouched the skin in much the same way I do with my female models. That is, maintaining the overall texture while eliminating every single blemish and wrinkle. Subtle yet effective.

House of Idol

Models: Roksana @ Confidence Models, Bria, Dena, and Elwira.

Photographer: A R Harvey
Stylist: Simone La Rose
Makeup: Jairo Dual
Hair: Magdalena Tucholska

Location courtesy of Browns, South Molton St, London and Simone La Rose.

Dirt needn't always be unattractive. A bit of grime can infer authenticity and lend a little scruff for the audience to grip.

The shoot was a branding exercise for Idol magazine. I wanted something raw and organic - like a tired old pair of shoes, tossed in the corner after a heavy night out. Spilt lager, vomit, broken glass... the detritus of a good time.

Often we desire the things that elude us most. Many crave acceptance, a sense of belonging. Others hunger for security. The girls are seen to protect each other and jealously guard their clique. We as mere gate crashers can do little more than look on and veil our envy.

This was never the party, only the hangover.

Danielle Zarb-Cousin

Danielle Zarb-Cousin is one of the New Faces at Booking Models, London. This test shoot was an opportunity to try several different styles, produce some great pictures and have some fun too.

For the close-ups I experimented with a small soft-box in place of a beauty dish. The light is a lot smoother - the fall-off more pronounced - and this created a greater sense of depth and dimension. When it came to retouching my aim was to try and break up the uniform grey background and make the composition more dynamic. It was very much an exercise in generating drama and redirecting the eye to the most powerful elements of the image.

Model: Danielle Zarb-Cousin @ Bookings Models.

Photographer: A R Harvey
Makeup: Carla Wall
Hair: Laura Szydlowski
Stylist: Charlotte Blazeby

Special thanks to Troy at Bookings.

Thank you everyone for your hard work!

Saphia

Here are a couple of pictures from a few weeks back.

Saphia spent the entire afternoon flicking her hair and jumping on the spot. By the end she was pretty tired...

Easter Monday Portraits

My parents visited me in London over Easter. While they were down I thought it would be a good idea to take some photos.

Pictured above is my father. I didn't think my mother would appreciate having her face plastered across a public website though, so she remains absent.

The Folly of Self Portraits

I have been debating with myself whether to post the above portrait. Although I look very earnest, the photo is meant to be anything but.

Recently I invested in a honeycomb grid reflector set. The grids, which slot onto the front of the reflector, narrow the beam of light. There are three to choose from, and each produces a different angle of spread. I was eager to try them out, and in lieu of a model, I had to use myself.

Cindy Sherman I am not.

In the Realm of Shadow and Silhouette

In addition to freezing motion, Vicki and I also explored the realm of shadow.

The holy trinity of key, fill and back light is well established. It is the classic, textbook lighting setup. However it does get tired pretty quickly. The back light defines the form of the subject's shadow side - it adds dimension and separates the foreground from the background. This is the conventional wisdom.

But is it the only way of defining form? Of course not.

For our shoot, I eliminated fill and back lighting entirely. Instead of fighting the resulting silhouette I chose to embrace it, using the crisp, dark outline to define the shape of Vicki's body. What can be done with light can often be done with shadow too, it seems. A few more examples can be seen in my post on freezing motion.

Using shadow to remodel the face.