Kayla had been on our list of models to do a shoot with for a long while, but we’d just never found the right time to get everything coordinated. Things finally clicked into place in July when we asked Kayla her schedule once again. [If at first you don’t succeed — AND it involves a beautiful naked woman — try, try again.]
We arranged to shoot with Kayla for a day in August, and thankfully it fell in a period when it was actually warm and sunny in England. [They have that period? Huh. Who knew?] We arrived at the studio very early since it was either that or get to the studio after the shoot time we’d booked with them so we ended up waiting a bit for Lee, the studio owner. He arrived fifteen minutes before the booking as he normally does, and we all sat down while he did the release for the location. We caught up after having not shot a the studio for a time while we waited for Kayla who was running slightly late. We generally anticipate a little tardiness, thus we have a buffer of fifteen minutes “after” a shoot to be out of the studio. [Try scheduling to a 15-minute window in Los Angeles, and people will laugh, and laugh…]
Kayla called from the street in front of the studio so I went down and looked for her. She had driven down to the end of the street by mistake, so I couldn’t find here. I called her again and she told me the colour of her car, so I started to wave an arm so she could she where I was standing. Eventually we got her guided into the the off-street studio parking. Once parked she said sorry for being slightly late due to family member being ill, but I said there was no need to stress and worry about it. [Good choice. A model who shows up late will already be nervous about it. Exacerbating the situation will never work to your benefit. Just be all sweetness and understanding — at least until writing about the experience later on the web.]
Thankfully the lift was working. I helped Kayla with her stuff up to the studio, and — while Kayla had a quick cup of tea [Of course she did.] and filled out the paperwork — I setup the first lighting, for which we chose a “summer” set. We also had a new Nikon camera to try out (a D7100) with a really cool lens. Lucky had recommended this [85mm f1.4] when we told him we were going to update our shoot equipment. The lens cost more than the camera, and to say we were skeptical about the lens would be an understatement. However, we have to say that once we shot a few tests with Kayla, we were convinced that this lens could have magical properties. It was money well spent. and we plan on trusting Lucky’s recommendations when it comes to lenses from now on. [Uh-huh. It would be impolite to point out that we have heard similar promises about purchase recommendations in the past which surprisingly still resulted in “skeptical” views in the future, so we will not mention it — at least until writing about the experience later on the web.]