For Rustan’s Iconic, Spring/Summer 2019.

We had covered a lot of ground this day, with the requirements of creating majority of the content for a full look book. This was our last layout, after finishing three other completely different setups. Ricardo Preto had this idea of hanging these cellophane party strings for a set, to help translate motion and celebration to the cover. We took my light stands and set up a 2x2 meter booth, with a chicken wire roof to hang all the party strings.

By 4:30pm we started shooting. The approach towards golden hour was a perfect flood of warm light, giving the cellophane the right amount of glitter and glow. I stationed myself against the sun as I didn’t want too much reflection on me from the party strings. A large golden reflector was redirecting the light from the sun towards the model’s right side (left of frame). The reflector had to be positioned from a pretty far distance as the gold side tends to be very sensitive to light. A white foam board was beside me, bouncing to create fill for our model.

The location we were shooting at was fairly windy, and our model had to keep moving through the strings. In order to shoot as sharp as I could, I set my shutter to 1/500 to keep the motion blur at a minimum. I didn’t want to show the trees or anything beyond our booth, so I kept it at an aperture of F4.0. The most difficult thing I had to go through during this layout was focusing; as the strings would constantly get in front of the camera, I’d end up focusing as well at midpoint. I remember during this point I didn’t really have any solution in mind—I buried my finger deep in my focusing button and just kept trying while shooting in hopes that I got a shot.

Photography by Artu Nepomuceno, assisted by Ignacio Gador
Styling and Direction by Ricardo Preto
Hair by Mong Amado