Welcome to one of my favourite ever shoots! When @rosalimonata_ approached me for a shoot - I loved their look and wanted to put more focus on beauty photography for 2022. A quick question from me, "Are you comfortable with snakes?" and everything came together immediately!
A friend of mine, @acidreptiles is a reptile collector with over 60 random creatures. Happy to collab on his first ever photoshoot, we agreed on 3 different snakes that would photograph well. We had an Australian Olive Pythons due to how friendly (and pretty) she is, a Mackots Python due to how reflective they would be underneath studio lighting with their little yellow tummy, and an Gonyosoma Oxycephalum due to his strikingly vivid green colouring.
I used a simple setup for these shots. I scrunched up some gold fabric for additional texture as a backdrop. A softbox was placed above, with a golden reflector beneath the chin to reflect the light and warm up the shots. I wanted to get really high contrast images & show the connection between the snakes, the model & the camera.
One of the reasons I loved rosalimonata_'s look was the vivid, edgy tattoos, the facial piercings. not to mention their gorgeous curly hair and amazing glasses. We had a conversation prior to the shoot where they mentioned not many beauty photographers were interested in shooting due to their alternative style, however I love the contrast this brings to the images.
Behind the scenes with the Gonyosoma Oxycephalum:
As the shoot progressed, the snakes smeared our lipstick across the model's nose, teeth and cheeks, creating quite a dramatic look. We kept this, and it added an interesting vibe to some of our later shots.
Inspired by our third snake "Olivia", We also added a brown leather jacket with tassels to bring a brown, fashion element to the set.
These images have been published in Scorpio Jin Magazine, Vol 55 "Way 2 Sexy".
