A historic, exciting day! I couldn't sit still and wait for results to get in, so it was either continuous snacking or photo editing, to pass time.

Today I headed to the Botanical Gardens in the Golden Gate Park to photograph some Kusumita fashions as modeled by designer Camille. My first real foray into fashion photography - cat walks and models that already know how to pose don't count. I finally understood the duties of the stylist - it's enough to think about, composition and lighting, but to incorporate poses, showing off clothing, worrying about hair and jewelry, wind direction (does the skirt poof out unflatteringly?) - it was definitely a challenge. Fortunately Camille had studied some poses out of the latest Vogue. I should do the same, though these days my magazines are more likely to feature photographs of vegetarian food.

Anyways. I called upon my figure drawing coordinator experience from years ago - with inexperienced figure drawing models, I had to pose them interestingly. One bit of advice to achieve this make sure that the 3 planes: face, torso and hips, do not all face the same direction. That makes for a boring pose. At least one twist, at the waist and/or head, makes for visual interest. Straight limbs are also boring; bend them.

This white dress called for non-color photos, even before I photographed it. So did the tree in the right hand photo. Monterey Pine, I believe - had great texture, a contrast to the softness of the dress. The late afternoon light was also difficult to photograph with. Strong shadows, so I used some flash, to lessen the contrast. The bench shot, below, was in the shade.