Here's the latest shot to come out of the Feterati Girls fashion show in Montreal - and easily my most ambitious image to date! I actually had this image in mind as I was shooting the individual models, so lots of the action and direction was designed to create poses that would go together well, with the kind of energy I was looking for. This kind of shot does require a lot of planning, and I think it's a bit like acting against a green screen - you have to be able to imagine what the final image will look like!

Quite a few people have asked how whether this was shot in one go.  In fact it would be nearly impossible to get good lighting with such a large group, so I actually shot each model individually (although the two girls on the left were shot together), trying to keep the light as consistent as possible. Here's the lighting setup.  It was shot at Blah Blah studios in Montreal (yes, I live in London but seem to spend quite a bit of time in Montreal!)... with many thanks to Mario Bouchard, the owner of the studio.

The process of putting the final image together was pretty intense.  The rough steps were:

• Created a "rough cut" image, to help with selecting the right poses to use and building a pleasing composition.  (The first draft just looked like all the girls standing in a row - not good at all!)
• Processed each shot as an individual image, adjusting colour balance, exposure etc., as well as working on skin and contrast.  I then separated the model from the background - always a tricky process to get right! - so that I had a bunch of "playing pieces" to work with.
• Positioned and scaled each model within the composition so that it looked right.  Again, this was quite tricky as sometimes the "correct" scaling doesn't actually look right.  There's a sort of forced perspective going on here.
• Then matched the exposures & colour balance of each model
• Finally created inserted the other elements e.g. the bubbles (which I built from scratch in PS), shadows, the logo on the floor (the joys of the "screen" mode for layers!), the glitter ball etc.

Quite a project!  Hope you like the result - it's certainly a colourful spectacle and I really want to print it out huuuge :)

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