[March 2014]
(Ocean Beach in a 2012 shot)
Based in Canada, Pickles LaVey is much more than a model. She is also a burlesque performer, fire-eater, and writer of music and skits. If there’s a theme for which a costume is to be made, or a specific look is to be achieved, you can trust her to put in extra hours to do it herself.
This was my second series with her. We have gone on to work together on several more shoots. She’s another model I try and shoot with, whenever she’s in the Bay Area.
A beach, with water and wind as additional Elements, was going to be a complementary location for a shoot involving dancing with fire hois. The intention was to showcase her ability with the hoi… and also to capture the striking visual of the cooler color of the water, in contrast with the warm color of the flame. This is illustrated below.
(Water, Wind and Fire, f/1.8, 1/50 s., 1600 ISO)
Ocean Beach is San Francisco’s prime city beach. They say Burning Man had its origins in Baker Beach. However, when a clear evening gets chillier (a regular phenomenon, of course, in San Francisco), it’s often at Ocean Beach that you see people lighting fires.
The light was low by the time we got to Ocean Beach. The camera was eager to see what Pickes LaVey could do with a fire poi, but we had to light the poi first. After a few minutes’ struggle, we got the poi going.
I used the high-quality Canon EF85mm f/1.2L II USM lens for some time. Then, as the light got even lower, I switched to an EF50mm f/1.4 USM lens that could focus faster. No artificial lighting was used. The Canon EOS 5D Mark III’s performance at high ISO levels was decent.
(The Fire Eater, f/1.4, 1/50 s., 4000 ISO)
The Fire Eater was part of a 15 Shades of Grey show of black-and-white images at the SFWA‘s gallery (April 4 – May 6, 2017).