The outcome of this 60’s inspired shoot was one of my
favorites. Instead of shooting in Devon,
we took the bus out to Quantock Hills, Somerset and photographed our model,
Charlotte, there. It was gorgeous, sunny
day and the ride in the 1958 Leyland was smooth and enjoyable. I was the only passenger riding in the bus
and I have to say, you get a lot of attention driving through England in a
vintage automobile. Lots of people wave and honk at you. I felt like a rock star.
The team met up at Kate Sly’s Fashion Farmer styling studio
to prep Charlotte for the shoot while Dan, the Proprietor of the West of England Transportation Collection, and I attempted to get the bus to the location. We got stuck along the way due to being too
large to pass under a bridge and had to find a new route around to Quantock Hills. From there we faced challenges of
low trees and steep hills, but we finally made it and ended up having a very
successful shoot.
To enhance the photos, I added a tiny bit of blue to the
shadows in Lightroom, in addition to basic colour-correction. For the interior shots, I wanted to recreate
that vintage look so I then opened the images in Photoshop and after adjusting
the levels, etc. I used two actions I’ve created in the past for these types of
shoots. Basically, the light leak actions
add a light salmon colour to the highlights and a soft teal to the shadows. I then masked the action away from the model’s
face and corrected her skin tone. I always have to edit myself and use only 5-10%
opacity on my actions. Too many times I
think I have it right, take a step away from the computer and return to see
that my image looks over-processed. To
bring the detail of the trees back I reduced the exposure of the original image
and opened it separately in Photoshop. I
then did a rough selection of the windows with the pen tool and pasted it into
my new composite. With my opacity and
flow set to 30%, I gently brushed the trees back into my image.
Finally, I liquified the model’s dress, dodged and burned,
added a soft glow to the interior bus lights and adjusted my curves layer and
contrast. Here is an example of one
image straight out of camera and then the “after” retouched version. When these vintage bus shoots have been
completed I will go back and start adding in-depth retouching tutorials, but if
you have any questions, please contact me on my website and I’ll do my best to
answer you promptly.
Back to the shoot… here’s a brief clip of Nina touching up
Charlotte’s makeup on the bus, as well as some of my favorite images from the
day.
For more information on this ongoing project, please read my
first post about The Vintage Bus Project, as well as check out my website http://alexandragunnoe.com
CREDITS:
Charlotte Iles (Model)
Alexandra Gunnoe (Photographer)
Dan Shears (Proprietor of the WETC)
Kate Sly at Fashion Farmer (Stylist)
Nina Spinks (MUA & Hair Stylist)
Alexandra Gunnoe Photography
