Billy the Lost Boy
Added 2020-09-01 10:38:44 +0000 UTCI am fairly typical of most creative people, I could dissect everything I would do differently or what is wrong with the shoot for hours but with every creative project, there comes a time where you just have to release it to the world. Looking back at old shoots, sometimes it's fun to rework and sometimes you just leave well enough alone.
This shoot of Billy came about a couple of years ago after talking for a while. Sadly Billy lives overseas so we hadn't been able to do a shoot. Then he came home to visit family and was very gracious to spare some time for me so we went off to the Royal National Park early one cool, late-autumn morning where I cast him as an angelic looking boy, lost in the woods.
There are some issues for me with the lighting in this shoot. It was shot using available natural light and in some spots it's direct and in others it was shaded or reflected light which can be tricky to make the shots feel cohesive through the shoot. I've learned a little bit about sorting those things out in the time since this shoot but I don't think it's too glaring a problem. To be honest, most people are distracted by Billy's intriguing combination of boyish face and muscular athletic body.
I've done a few shoots in this area over the years and depending on the time of year, and how much rain we've had, it can change so drastically. There have been times when it is almost dry there and others when the water is moving very freely.
When the world moves on from COVID and travel starts to open up again, Billy and I have been talking about collaborating on another shoot when he comes home to visit family again. I think next time we will change it up completely. Billy is a dancer and that gorgeous face of his can look quite different with different lighting and we should probably take advantage of that and get a bit creative and edgy in the studio.
