Randall as photographed at Heather Windsor Studio in Bowmanville, Ontario. Randall made the trek all the way from Oakville to Bowmanville on a busy Saturday afternoon, and we burned off a ton of photos in about an hour before she had to trek back to Oakville for a function. Her round trip took about three times as long as the actual shoot! This is further proof that she’s amazing.

If you missed it, a behind-the-scenes image is here and you can also check out our swank video from the shoot.

Wardrobe: Victoria’s Secret PINK. Both Randall and I are super-excited about real Victoria’s Secret stores opening in Toronto soon!

Lighting: Nikon SB-900 on camera with Gary Fong Lightsphere collapsible, Nikon SB-800 to camera left, Alien Bees 400 with pink gel on the background.

Randall is seen here posing in the freight elevator at Heather Windsor’s studio in Bowmanville, Ontario. This is pretty much the hottest photo I’ve ever taken of Randall; she amazes me every time we shoot by constantly stepping it up. During our shoot, she acknowledged studying the contact sheets from our previous shoots to learn her best angles and poses. This is why she can look six feet tall in this photo despite being nowhere near that. Is she ready for the Victoria’s Secret catalogue? I think so.

In summary, Randall is the awesomeness and I love her. Can’t wait ’til we shoot again.

Wardrobe: H&M lingerie that I got on sale ($7 for the bra, $5 for the thong).

Lighting: Profoto Pro Ring 2 and daylight.

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Here’s me and Randall in the studio on Saturday. Keep checking back for the results of this shoot!

Music by Goldfrapp and Richard X.

Above: Adriana wears the most ridiculous yellow pants that I blogged about last year. SB-900 bounced off the wall behind me as I was scrunched up on the bathroom counter.

Above: SB-900 bounced off the ceiling after we pushed aside some furniture to reveal the hardwood floor.

Above: Backlit by the window and sheer curtains, no additional light sources.

From last summer. Crystal Crescent Beach, Nova Scotia.

About half an hour before this picture was taken, I damn near broke my ankle. I mentioned it in a previous post but never told the whole story. Kristen and I met up at the Halifax Shopping Centre, which was an adventure in itself, with her trying to direct me to which part of the parking lot she was in.

We then drove 30km south to Crystal Crescent Beach. As it was a weekday, the beach was pretty deserted. Crystal Crescent is actually a series of beaches, the last and furthest of which is an unofficial nude beach. Stupidly, we decided to walk along the beach to get to the nude section, rather than the grassy path. This was stupid because much of the beach is strewn with enormous rocks and boulders, close to the water’s edge. Much of the trek was only boulders, in fact, with no sand in sight for a few kilometres.

Everything was going just swimmingly until I stepped on a loose rock and my left ankle twisted, rolled, then buckled underneath me. My body weight came crashing down on my ankle in an awkward squatting position, made far, far worse by the added weight of my two camera bags that had been slung over my shoulders. The extra fifty pounds of camera and lighting gear is probably what did me in, as I think my ankle would have been relatively fine without it. I gasped in pain and knew immediately that something was wrong. For a second, I thought my ankle was broken, as I was not able to move from the position I landed in and was in a great deal of pain. I managed to shimmy the bags off my shoulders and somehow didn’t let them slip down the rather large crevices that separated each boulder. Once my gear was safe, I worked on returning my ankle to a non-pretzel position. I wasn’t sure at this point if I could go on or not — but I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, Nova Scotia. Kristen sure as hell wasn’t going to carry me back to the car. So after taking a few minutes to recover, we pressed onward to our destination where the photo above was captured. The cool water of the ocean helped ease the pain, and the limp back to the car (along the path) was not nearly as painful as it could have been.

However, my ankle got much, much worse as the day wore on. It swelled to many times its original size and became discoloured. The buckle on my sandals had to be let out several notches to accommodate the ever-growing size of my ankle. My range of motion became more limited, it hurt like hell just to walk, and I couldn’t drive or even sleep properly. I ended up at a walk-in clinic where I got some anti-inflammatories, an ankle brace, and confirmation that I did indeed sprain the hell out of it. The rest of my two week trip was followed by constant nightly icing of my ankle to reduce the swelling that easily built up every day from walking around. When I got home, six weeks of physiotherapy helped to get my ankle back in normal working order. Even now, some eight months later, I feel as though my ankle is only at about 90-95% of what it was before. It no longer causes me pain, but I can tell my range of motion is slightly reduced compared to my other healthy ankle.

The upshot of all this is that the photos turned out really well, though I can’t show many of them here.

Photos from the shoot coming soon!

I will photograph Angela one day. She doesn’t know it yet.

Angela by Richard Dubois

This was one of the very last shots I did of Amanda. She knew instinctively what to do and how to do it — somehow putting her face in the exact position where the hardwood floor (unseen in this photo) was reflecting the most light. The light came from some large windows behind me and nothing else. Though I’d set up my Alien Bees strobes earlier in the day, the only reason I touched them during Amanda’s shoot was to constantly move them out of my way and let the natural light flow in.

Amanda hasn’t seen these photos yet as she’s jetsetting right now; currently in Panama and off to Mexico next week. I hope she likes them! Maybe when she comes back with a tan, I can convince her to hit the beach with me here in Toronto for some more photos.

First up, we have Amanda, a first-time model who did a stellar job despite having a little bit of trouble finding the studio. I’ll forgive her, though, as we got tons of stellar images in our 90 minutes together. Amanda must have studied her Victoria’s Secret catalogue before the shoot, as she was nailing poses left and right without much prompting from me.

Next up is Heidi, an old friend who previously shot for Playboy! Heidi comes and goes from my life on a regular basis, but the few hours we hung out taking pictures felt like we’ve never been apart. Heidi told me she likes her bum better than her face, but I’d say this photo makes a compelling argument for both.

All three shots were done with pure, simple, afternoon window light. No artificial light sources.