Photo shoot - Bryony and Alex - teenagers doing an urban theme

21st April 2007

I was very lucky to be given the opportunity to photograph twelve year olds, Bryony and Alex, but I didn't realise until after I scoured through over 400 shots, how lucky I was. These two girls really did know how to work the camera, and I remember thinking to myself during the shoot, wow, this is pretty easy work. I was a little apprehensive beforehand (not having done any work with children or teenagers previously), so I racked my brains trying to think of what would suit Bryony (it was initially a shoot for Bryony, but along came Alex and became a handy participant). Finally, I came up with the idea of an urban theme - gritty, with some graffiti. I wanted to show some of Bryony's personality in the photos - she reminds me of a young Avril Lavigne, and so we were off through Reading town centre to find a bridge which was housed in graffiti.

We were lucky that the bridge had some artificial lighting, as we didn't expect so much traffic late on a Friday night, and the sun was going down. So we began. Alex and Bryony had loads of fun running around and I was trying to keep up with some crafty attempt at focusing. Pretty soon they got into stride and we got some really good shots in low light condition. Some were with flash, tilted at various angles, and mainly using a fisheye lens to complement the personality from the girls.

Afterwards it was back to the studio for what the girls obviously "really" wanted to do - pose as models. So the lights came out and they got dressed up and I captured some really nice shots of the two of them, and individually.

They were quite pleased with the initial results (prior to any post processing) so I hope they love the work once it's finished. I was satisfied in being able to successfully capture the mood that I wanted both indoors and outdoors, and the girls were a real pleasure to work with. Well done to you both!

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