Infra Red shoot with Ivory Flame and Madame Bink

Readers of this blog will know I LOVE a challenge.

So in the depths of an English Winter I decided to shoot an Infra Red 'Rainforest' type shoot with an 'Eden' vibe

Where to do it?

 I hear Cape Verde is a great location but budget prevailed and I had to come up with an alternative.

So I came up with a green house somewhere in England.

I had the small issue that I wanted it to be a full nude shoot with live snakes.

I asked the location if I could do the shoot and for a fee they agreed.

With the proviso that the glasshouse would be open to the public.

'No problem' I said

At no point did they ask if any nudity or snakes, courtesy of Wrigglies, would be involved.

So operating under the banner of 'don't ask don't tell' it was full steam ahead.

I told the just plain brilliant models Madame Bink and Ivory Flame what they were in for and they did not bat an eyelid, I was more nervous than they were!

With strategic positioning of softboxes and California Sunbounce reflectors, public decency was not offended and nobody rumbled us.

But to say it was a hurried shoot is an understatement.

We lit both of these shots with a Chimera Lantern on a Manfrotto AvengerA4050 lightstand which was which gave the whole scene this great overall look, filling in from the front with a Chimera medium softbox at one stop under the lantern.


I love the A4050 lightstand as it is very flexible, not just very substantial lightstand but a boom too, a must have on any location shoot

Both using Elinchrom Quadra's.

When we had the lighting fixed we just went for it both the portraits and the landscape shots

A very simple set up but it hit the spot.


It was all shot on a Phase One DF camera with the quite amazing Achromatic digital camera back. I used the Razor sharp Schneider LS 110MM lens with a Lee 87 infra red filter.

The video was shot on a Canon XF100 DV camera, which despite its small size is super high quality and has one other feature which was invaluable - it can shoot in infra red too.


The Palms from drew gardner on Vimeo.


All in all a great experience, but nerve wracking all the same.