I did a shoot a couple of weeks ago for my good friend Lissa Hill, who is launching her brand new line of motorcycle leathers. Lissa makes beautiful custom motorcycle and fashion leather garments, and it was great fun to find different ways to showcase them. Lissa’s made a few leather jackets for me, and I can vouch for how great it feels to have something custom made for you that fits your sense of style and your body like a glove.

We hired Sarah to model the clothes, and she did a great job. Sarah was a pleasure to work with. She’s an expressive model who is able to quickly find a pose and expression to match what needs to be communicated in the photos. Hair and makeup artist Sue Upton created a number of different looks for Sarah, so the photos would have some variety.

Sue Upton and Lissa Hill getting Sarah ready for the first photo of the day.

I went with high contrast lighting to emphasize the high contrast look of Lissa’s designs. I set up a single Alien Bees B800 strobe above Sarah on a boom, with only the standard silver reflector and nothing to diffuse it. I positioned Sarah close to the white background so she’d cast some interesting shadows.