Florence - Fra Poco

Copyright Carla Coulson

I am off to Florence in the morning for a whole week of fashion... Yippy... Here are a couple of pics I took last time I went to Dante and Beatrice's town!! Have a great weekend. Carla

Natural Light and a beautiful girl

I have learnt to use natural light under many different circumstances and I have risked numerous times shooting fashion inside using ambient light. It's nerve wracking without a dout. but depending where you are in the world and who designed the building you will be shooting in, you maybe lucky like I have been and manage to pull it off. Our location was in a room of an ex-Florentine convent. Falling apart at the seams just the way we love it. I checked out the vaulted ceilings and high windows the day before noting the time when the sun was at it's highest, when it had completely died and making light readings along the way. The weather the following day was predicted to be the same so I went for it. I shot on my Leica M8 iso 400 with an assistant using a reflector. At certain times of the day the light boomed in the window bouncing of the walls creating a soft box effect. Mother nature, a wonderful stylist, great model and photoshop did the rest. I used a combination of bleach by pass, curves and colour correction to obtain the washed out colours.

Fashion Shoot - Blade Runner

Rachael Blade Runner

I was in Florence recently to shoot the above story for a fashion magazine. We had the most wonderful model from New Zealand, make-up artist Paolo Baroncelli and fashion art director Marta Innocenti Ciulli. Our story was inspired by Rachael, the fabulous replicante who falls in love with Harrison Ford in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Of course our model was real, not a human copy!

Last night I re-watched Blade Runner for the umteenth time this film masterpiece with its magical city, wonderful lighting, great decors and styling and fab story. I would love to have shot in one of those smoky rooms with the fan whirring or in JF's amazing apartment but walking the streets with our lovely model with her blue lips was a lot of fun, it caused a stir among the Florentines. We were a motley crue, like a scene from the pied-piper searching for locations with a long string of willing 'Florentine assistants'. As always, a wonderful day in Florence with inspiring colleagues!

Let me know if you think our girl reminds you of Rachael?