Behind the Scenes – ‘THE STORM STARTER’
A late summers day I gathered a fantastic team to make an image for my conceptual portrait series ‘Parallels’. I had been inspired by Rania’s (previous studio portrait) dreadlocks and her dark features for some time…
“…I wanted to create a portrait alluding to greek mythology characters and their features, like Medusa and her hair and the sirens and their manipulative powers. Being from the windy southwestern parts of Sweden the image was created on the concept of the ocean and storm, and the power to control it.“
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Photographer | JENNY JACOBSSON
Make Up Artist | MARTINA SÖDERLUND
Model | RANIA RÖNNTOFT
Assistant | ANDREAS SKOGLUND
Behind the Scenes footage | JENNY, MARTINA and ANDREAS
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Martina got the task of keeping Rania’s natural beauty but at the same time turn her into a vicious sea creature. I had the task of making Ranias dreads stand up like they were floating and moving by her powers. To do this I needed to twist steel wires round every one of her approx. 40 dreadlocks and then sew sewing threads to the tips that we later connected to a wire ring crafted by Andreas.
We attached the wire ring to a long stick that Andreas used to lift up the dreadlocks above Rania’s head. Thank you so much Andreas, for patiently performing the odd task of standing out in the cold wind holding a stick attached to hair.
A huge thank you to you Rania for your radiantly positive attitude, even when getting wet and cold. And to Martina for your creative vision and also shooting BtS footage. We sure had a fun time, fighting against the sunset!
MY TIP FOR FURTHER READING
If you enjoy the Behind the Scenes videos, you should take a look at this freeeeeezing one…
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IF YOU LIKED HER PORTRAIT, GIVE RANIA SOME LOVE ON FACEBOOK!
What a great setting and result! But…. can´t help though being curious about the “original” Picture with Rania in the green dress, must been a wonderful Picture as well as the blue result!? Hugs
I’m glad you liked it Therese! When you say the original picture with the green dress… I’m curious to know what you mean exactly? The final image is an image with that exact green dress, although the color is adjusted to look like the ocean (color and highlights) since she is a creature from the ocean (at least in my mind). And the choice of image angle was done on what I found most intriguing as a story. Just let me know if you had anything else in mind and I’ll be happy to explain 🙂
Thanks for your reply. What I meant was; I was imagined the modell with her brown hair and that green dress and that toghether with the environment must itself have looked beautiful – was my thought.
Oh yeah, you are absolutely right 🙂 Rania is truly a beauty with her unique look. And the island of Stora Amundön where we were is fantastic! The whole island has some sort of fantasy vibe to it, going so well with Rania’s look. Combining it with sunset was a hit. Even though I think people that saw us must have thought we were crazy, walking around with a girl attached to a stick with her hair haha!
I must say, to use a beach at sunset would be such a wonderful location to also shoot standard portraits or beauty shots at, and I see it be done quite often. Although, for you guys out there who want to try shooting at sunset for the first time, I just want to remind you of how quickly the sun disappears! You truly don’t have much time shooting what you are out there to shoot. So being well prepared and know exactly what you are after before hand is a great tip. In this case, for our conceptual image, we managed to try three different angles, one standing up, a few close ups and then the one that we chose for the final image, sitting down. That was about it before the sun was gone. And we didn’t take that many frames from each angle. So make sure your team (if you are working with one) knows exactly what you’ll do during that short period of time, and then work as a well oiled machine 🙂