I was asked by Stefano Brunesci to model for another tuition session back in March. The attending photographer was Chris Sinn, who wanted to learn a thing or two about Stefano’s methods and style (he wrote on his blog afterwards, as part of a lovely write up of the day: ‘there is just something about his lighting and style that makes me drop my bacon sandwich and inspires me to do better’!)

Stefano is a great teacher, not least because he is completely and utterly honest about what he does and how he does it, from lighting (he does achieve a lot in such a compact home studio!) to interaction with the subject. From a model’s point of view, I can say that Stefano is really, really great at encouragement – VERY vocal while shooting, which helps a lot and also goes a long way towards setting the particular mood that he tends to go for. His shooting tends to be quite fast-paced, so there is less ‘Pose. Click. Pose. Click’ (though there’s nothing wrong with that, and in general I can often be quite a ‘deliberate’ poser) and more ‘let’s just go a bit crazy in front of the camera without stopping’, which results more in the kind of energy of image you’ll see below.

First, I’ll show some shots by Chris, who I thought did very well and is a great photographer himself.

And after Chris had gone, Stefano and I did a quick mini-shoot ourselves for fun. I do mean quick – these were taken in ten minutes:

(Embarrassing outtake….)