The idea and concept for this shoot came to me when I had a conversation with a friend and she told me that she would rather live in her dreams than in reality. Her story struck me because it made me question reality and what it would feel like to live in an eternal dream.
I have always wondered what boundaries exist between dream and reality. What would it take to live in an eternal dream in where you can have complete control of the world? With the series, I question our reality and how its connected to dreams. Our dreams are an entry way to another kind of reality. I believe that if we have full control of our dreams, it could be a fully realized reality just as much as the one we live in now.
The model for this shoot is Olivia Medina and she is doing a lot of great work. She is a professional model and was recently the cover model for Rogue magazine.
This was the first time I worked with a professional model that wasn’t initially one of my friends and it was very intimidating. However, working with professional models is very rewarding because they know their angles very well. She saw my work on facebook and thus we ended up collaborating for this shoot. This is why it is important to share your work to the public even when you’re just getting started. The best way to spread you work out is through websites like Flickr or Facebook. Don’t be scared of criticism but rather accept it. You miss out on a lot of opportunities if you don’t.
I used three different locations for this shoot. The first location we shot at was on a yacht provided by a friend of mine. The next is actually the house next to mine back in Manila. They had torn their house down to build a new one and I just couldn’t resist. I didn’t know the owner of the lot so we had to sneak in, totally worth it. Always keep your eyes opened for locations that would be great for a shoot. The last location was a furniture showroom that again was provided by a friend.
For the concept to fully realize itself, I had to make sure that I had the correct lighting. I timed my shoot in each location so that I could use the sun to my advantage. This is very important when planning a photo shoot. Always keep the sun and its light in your mind.
According to a lot of great photographers out there, the best investment you can make aside from your camera would be lighting equipment. Ambient light will always be the best kind of light but it is also very hard to control.
It was about 3pm when we finished setting up for our first shoot. It was a great day out but there wasn’t a lot of clouds in the sky so the sun light wasn’t diffused and created really harsh shadows. There are a couple ways to lighten up these shadows, one is a reflector and another is a secondary light source. Light sources can range from a flash light, a speed light to studio strobes.
Reflectors are an essential to a portrait photographer and I highly advice you getting one. They are not so expensive and they can easily improve your portrait photographs. I found one in Amazon that works perfectly, Neewer 110CM 43″ 5-in-1 Collapsible Multi-Disc Light Reflector. You can easily change this reflector to different things to suit your needs. I used it as a diffuser for this shot.
I used a combination of the diffuser and a secondary light to decrease the harsh contrast on the model.
Here is the whole series: “Live In A Dream”
