Quote:
Originally Posted by dasduffer
Out of interest, how many pics did you take, how
long did you get with the girls, how much did it cost you etc?
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Pat Wynn's "Double D Club" shoots were held in a variety of studios, mostly now defunct I believe. The exception to this was a professional's studio we used where we often took advantage of sets that he had created for shoots of his own. Lighting would always be set up with two brollies producing a flat light, f/8 @ 100asa so the model's position wasn't critical, triggered with on camera flash bounced off the ceiling.
Pat would invite three or four models and two or three might be working one per set and there might be 20 or 30 photographers who would divide themselves between the sets. From time to time Pat would join in herself - especially if a model was late. The day kicked off at 11, lunch 1-2 and the shooting until 4-5 I think - the last hour was usually winding down with two-girl shoots? The times all very "ish". Buffet lunch in the studio chatting with the models.
Each model seemed to work to their own limits - typically "uk magazine". Once or twice "us magazine" but never stronger. Vicky Lee was often topless only - except for a shoot one December when I remember Kathy Shannon shouting at her to "get your knickers off - it's Christmas" and there was a sudden increase in interest!
The day ended up with a raffle where the three winners would win the opportunity to remove a suspender belt, a bra and knickers from the models.
How well it worked depended on the model. The canny ones would adopt a pose and hold it while looking along the line one at a time so everybody could get a shot and you would do quite well if you composed and focused and then waited for eye contact before final focus and shot. Others would look around a random, shifting poses and often paying most attention to the noisiest. Two-girl shoots were usually hopeless from the point of view of getting good shots - the odds of getting both models looking at you at the same time was negligible.
I reckoned on shooting about eight rolls - so about 280 shots. I had my own colour darkroom and it would take me a day to produce 4 10x8 prints so you got to be pretty critical of sharpness and composition before deciding to print a shot. I reckoned on getting 6 shots per roll that were worth printing but only having time to print one or two per roll.
Once a year, the shoot would take place on a boat trip but my diary never matched up with the dates alas!
I'd love to discover similar format shoots today - most shoots these days seem far more rigid and don't have the same class of model. In general, today's models often come with tattoos, implants, piercings and those awful perspex platform shoes. Tower Studios used to do something similar until a few years ago but then disappeared.