Six Degrees of Separation

Added 1716140673 by Pierus.

I love a great back story to meeting people, and the wonderful serendipity of meeting someone awesome.

Way back in 2010, when I just started out shooting art nude models, I had a few great shoots with Katie of Cabaret Rouge, and we built a friendship. She moved to St Tropez to continue organizing her UK dance troupe, but in the French hospitality industry. I happen to have relatives near there, so we had two great shoots with her when I was in France visiting family 2014. Fast forward to 2022, when visiting family again, she invited me to join her for the farewell picnic for 4 of her dancers. In addition to getting some fitness branding photos for her, I also had a short sunset shoot with all the dancers on the beach in St. Tropez.

Then a few weeks ago, while browsing castings on here, I recognized one of the dancers, Emma, was looking for a fitness shoot to launch her personal training brand. I had no idea that she had a portfolio on here, and she had no idea that I was based in the UK again, so she jumped at the opportunity to shoot while on her brief visit back to the UK.

Not only did the fitness branding photos turn out amazingly, but I was wowed by her as a nude model, and in fact wasn't quite prepared for the amazing options that were on offer (had I known, I'd have planned more thoroughly!)

Her brief visit to the UK happened to fall perfectly with the availability of this home studio, and I'd already had 3 shoots there in the days prior. I'd shot there a few times in the last 2 years, but never tried shooting from floor level, and the tiles gave a slight reflection. In the next shoot, I tried placing mirrors on the floor in front of the camera, and that helped boost the reflection, but it didn't reflect all the way to the seam. In the third shoot, I tried pouring water onto the floor, but there was a slight slope, so it pooled like a river around the camera. Finally, on this 4th shoot, I got the process down perfectly - just wetting the whole floor to give it a shine, but without creating a river. It definitely needed the iterative effort to get there, but now I know that it's possible, I'll be doing more of this idea the next time this location is available again.

Suffice to say, I absolutely love the results with Emma, and she was an absolute dream nude fitness muse to shoot with. Shame she's no longer in the UK, so I count myself lucky that I met Katie 14 years ago, that she introduced me to Emma on St Tropez beach, and that the stars aligned for us this week!