"This is the first time I've photographed @Talleigha. I was/am very intrigued by her Bad Ass X Classy style from the first time we met on a video shoot.
I reached out the Talleigha as I connected with her personality and aesthetic, and was excited to collab with her. Was a pretty incredible experience to have talent who was actively invested and engaged in the styling and I think this came across in her confidence and the look of the series.
The places we go to and how we interact with them shows who we are. As we both live close to and frequent China Town in Northbridge Western Australia, it was a good place to photograph @talleigha's natural style in her own urban jungle.
"Shooting at night is always challenging but I love how the city changes and evolves."
The ambient light, neon signs, featured walls and nightlife venues all share a unique colour palette and glow ideal for our aim of naturally shooting without any additional flash/lighting.
We had 3 hurdles in the shoot. The first was at Pot Black, which is a pool hall. The arcade driving game gave off a great yellow light for 5 seconds every two minutes, so we were held in that position for quite some time waiting for people to move and hoping we weren't going to get asked to leave.
The shot outside Club X came as we weren't allowed to shoot inside that or any other adult venues we approached. So we decided to be a little ballsy and just get a cheeky shot out front as soon as there was a break in foot traffic. Lasted all of 10 seconds before the wolf whistling started haha.
The Shisha shot was aided by The Hairy Persian, which is a Shisha cafe/ car wash. So we had plenty of space to put my bike and set up under their lights. The only trouble was setting up the Shisha to get it long enough to reach @talleigha's lips. They customer fitted it and gave us one of the bigger ones to produce enough smoke to visibly see it in the photos. The patrons didn't mind at all either..."
Photographer: @_rickysantos
Model: @talleigha