Hailey captured the mood of a rainy day looking out the French doors in my studio.
A wet shoot is what we scheduled. I put water onto glass and shot through it, I shot the model, Hailey Hines, looking through wet glass. I made it rain with a high pressure hose. I captured her with wet hair. I captured her drenching herself. All that was accomplished without the benefit of a river, lake or ocean. Not to say that those would not add elements, but the point is that a shoot can cover a theme even at a time or place that is not expected.
To do the wet shoot, it is obvious that we need to start dry. Then hair and makeup will be fully intact. So shots where she’s looking through glass are first. Hailey was great at setting a mood, which was captured in the French Doors shot. A pensive look outside on a rainy day.
This was taken using a hose to create the “rain”.
It is easy to select a model for a wet shoot. You only need to find a beautiful woman who knows how to apply Very Waterproof makeup and deal with being wet or drenching herself. And patient for while the photographer stumbles and grumbles about the wind blowing the “rain” onto the lens whenever he gets all set up for the “rain” shots. And shows up on time when the day comes. And, and. OK. Maybe not so easy, but I got lucky. To add to the luck, I did wait for summer so the day was warm. I also got the props set up in advance, such as the dotted umbrella. When I had her take the little orange watering can I found and drench herself, I did fill it with warm tap water. It will be foreign enough to have all the water in the studio, you might as well make it a bit more comfortable.
Hailey drenches herself for the camera.
To get the rain, I brought out a step-stool before the shoot and used gaffer’s tape to tape a fire-hose type nozzle to the ladder aimed just slightly off of 90 degrees vertical. I have very high water pressure, so the amount of “rain” produced was copious even though delivered through a garden hose.. You can see that captured in the shot with the umbrella.
After that, we did the shots that really got Hailey wet. I filled the small orange watering can with warm water and captured the image as she poured it onto her face. Obviously a shower would also work, but I don’t have one in my studio so I used this. Plenty in a watering can to get a number of shots with one filling.
Finally, with her hair now wet, we completed the wet shoot with photos of her with wet or messy hair. These were a bit more dark in nature. More of an edge than the others. Some were black and white, some were color shots. Then as the shoot progressed, the hair dried a little and we took a few just seated on the floor of the studio with a white background. Hailey folded up into a nice pretzel shape.
Hailey folded into a comfortable enough pretzel at the end of the shoot.
Freshly after the dousing with water, we took shots with wet, rumpled hair