Ligita is both a fashion photographer and a model. By chance she’d just finished meeting photographer and good friend Dan Hubbert at Lightspot Studio in London and she agreed to quickly pose for me on the stairwell outside. I love these spur of the moment shoots. I had just taken delivery of a new Canon 1D MkIV camera that morning to replace my MKIII and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to test it out. I’d been looking at the staircase on the way in to the studio and I thought it’d make a great location for a photo shoot.

Soft light

My first love is black and white film and those who know me better would say it’s my only love. Black and white photography simplifies. It reduces and concentrates the attention of the viewer so that photographs take on a more metaphorical quality. Couple that with a big window, high in a London tower block and you have the prefect diffuse light source for the perfect medium.

I was looking for contrasts. Not big ones but a texture nonetheless to offset’s Ligita great skin and I think we stole Dan’s black leather coat for exactly that purpose. Again, that’s me always looking around for random props to use as per my fashion shoot with Penny.

Floating on the floor

It wasn’t my first idea to photograph Ligita on the floor. It was more of a practical way to use the rectangular shape of the window’s light source across the full length of her body. And then as I was looking at the back the camera – Ligita looked kind of suspended – hanging in mid air – with only the base of the frame and vaguely recognisable landscape beyond hinting at the original framing. I’ve seen it done in other fashion shoots and ‘floating’ is definitely something I will be coming back to a more formal fashion shoot.

Photographer: Mark Esper
Model: Ligita V Tumane
Additional Garments: Daniel Hubbert