When I pulled up to Willow’s house in the middle-of-nowhere, Ontario, near the shores of Lake Erie, I was greeted by more than a dozen cats. They were lazing around, as cats do, warming themselves in the late evening glow of the sun. I should have taken a picture of them, as it would make this intro much more interesting. Instead, here’s something just as interesting: outdoor portraits with Willow.
Outdoor portraits with Willow C
Willow C., just 18, has been modelling and learning the ins and outs of makeup artistry for the last year or so. Her talent in both fields at such a young age is immense, and made the 3-hour drive to see her worthwhile.
Inspired by current fashion trends of bralettes, mesh and lace fabrics, and florals, we each brought a few of our favourite items to shoot with and headed out into the countryside for our outdoor portraits photo shoot.
Our first stop was a small trail that crossed a river. As we approached the trailhead, I noticed the sign welcoming us showed the trail’s distance: “.2km” it said. That can’t be right, I thought. Surely a number before the decimal point had worn away from the ravages of time. As we reached the end of the trail just a mere minute or two later, I realized the sign did not lie. It was indeed only 200 metres long, which makes me wonder why the sign was necessary at all, let alone its designation as a trail. I think Willow’s driveway was longer.
The nice part was that a rustic wooden fence greeted us at the other end of the trail, albeit on private property. Willow clad herself in a top and floral-adorned bra from Ardene, a popular mall store for trendy and cheap wares.
At first the sun didn’t cooperate. Late in the day, I was hoping for beautiful golden hour rays, but we had to wait out some clouds first before they appeared. With my Nikon 70-200mm lens, I made sure to capture some images with the sun in the frame for that soft, backlit goodness I love so much.
After a few passing cars slowed to take in Willow’s outfit, she opted for something a little more head-turning — a white, lace floral bralette from Sirens (a sub-brand of Urban Planet). Instead of shooting from below, at an upward angle to capture the sun in the frame, I opted for a top-down approach for these images. Standing on a log for most of these, I used my Nikon 50mm ƒ/1.4G and Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.8G (VIEW ON AMAZON) lenses to capture portraits of Willow with a field of green grass and yellow dandelions acting as our background.
On the way back down the comically short 200 metre trail, I spotted another backlit opportunity and snapped what I think was my favourite photo of the day:
For our final images, we headed to the beach (my first beach shoot of 2018!) to work with the last bits of golden hour light. Willow had an amazing floral bomber jacket from Ardene that I asked her to bring. Combined with the burgundy halter top, they were a perfect compliment to her smokey eye and maroon lip. I can’t praise her makeup skills enough.
Willow is active on social media, and you can follow her here:
Willow’s makeup Instagram deserves a special shout out, which you can follow here. Her look was comprised of:
Shop Amazon for the gear I used for these outdoor portraits
- Nikon D750 Full Frame DSLR Camera Body with Meike MK-DR750 Battery Grip
- Nikon 50mm FX ƒ/1.4G AF-S Lens
- Nikon 85mm FX ƒ/1.8G AF-S Portrait Lens, perfect for outdoors
- Nikon 70-200mm FX ƒ/2.8G ED VR II AF-S Zoom Lens
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