It’s been a pretty long time since I last had to oppertunity to shoot anything for myself for obvious reasons. So when a group photoshoot get-together was organised through the Ireland Models Facebook group I thought it might be a good way to shake the dust off my Mamiya RZ67. The event, now named the MegaShoot, was due to take place on Bull Island Sunday the 1st of August.
Now I wouldn’t normally be interested in shooting at these types of events as I usually find them to be a little too crowded for how I prefer to shoot. But the organiser Taz Smith had put a good amount of work into the structure of the day. Photographers and models were able to book 30 minute one-to-one slots with eachother with strict rules on not only those alloted times but also on the ethics of other photographers interfering by shooting over your shoulder. So I browsed the site, made a couple of bookings and tried to space them out throughout the day. Next thing was to decide on what and how I’d like to shoot.
Knowing there’d be lots of people onsite I choose to bring a canvas backdrop with me. This served two purposes, first of which was the look I was going for while hopefully adding a bit of separation and diversity for the subjects as we were all shooting in visually the same type of space. The second purpose it filled was to block out other people shooting or walking in the background, giving the illusion that we were the only people in this space. I had intended to spend more time set up and shooting in the dunes but unfortunately the local authorities had said that we weren’t alloud to be up there. This didn’t seem to apply to anyone else just out for the day walking on the beech. So I can only imagine they were concerned about the number of us in our ‘group’ inflicting damage on the grasses. Which is fair enough and something we had to respect in order to continue shooting.
My very first shot shown below with Aoife most closely resembles what I had envisioned when planning to take part in the shoot. Overall I’m very happy I dragged the C-stand and backdrop down to the location and it’s something I look forward to trying again.
Models:
Aoife McGrath, Joy Das, Kora Dei, Ksenija Brajkovic, Keara Lydon
Shot on a Mamiya RZ67 Pro II using Ilford HP5+
Polaroids shot using a Polaroid SX-70 and Polaroid SX-70 B&W Film (Expired)
Instax shot using a Zinstax back for Mamiya RZ67 Pro II created by Haan Chen
