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Lara Croft Underworld - Shoot Breakdown
🕑 Added 2021-02-28 05:38:40 +0000 UTCIntroduction
I've known Tiffany for a long time, she was involved in my first ever location shoot and I've shot her multiple times over the years as pictured below in this montage from 2016.
We haven't shot together for quite a while though so after seeing some of her recent creations online I reached out to shooting something. There were a couple in particular that caught my eye but the one we went with was Lara Croft's Underworld wetsuit.
Underworld
Tomb Raider: Underworld is an action-adventure video game, the ninth instalment of the Tomb Raider series, and third in Legend Trilogy, following character Lara Croft. The story continues from the events in Tomb Raider: Legend as a direct sequel, but also addresses unexplained plot elements by association with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Underworld was released by Eidos Interactive for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and Microsoft Windows, in North America on 18 November 2008, Europe on 21 November 2008 and Australia on 5 December 2008. [wiki]
Underworld Wetsuit is one of the outfits in Tomb Raider Underworld. It can be worn in the Mediterranean Sea Section and in the Arctic Sea Section. There's also an alternate color for this outfit available via the Xbox 360 Live Marketplace; the outfit is the same, except where the wetsuit is yellow, the alternate is blue. [wiki]
Location
Some of the photos Tiffany had posted were of the Underworld wetsuit taken at the beach with her sister Leonie. I know Leonie also has mobility issues due to a neurological condition so I enquired where and how she did it given that when you can't walk uneven ground particularly rocks, pebbles and sand are major obstacles. She said they had shot at Sellicks Beach, which is a beach you can drive onto, so they offered to return to the same location but additionally bring a couple of mobility scooters that could handle the terrain.
The Shoot
On the day we met at the Silver Sands ramp and all piled into Leonie's 4WD which was towing a horse float containing the 2 scooters. We drove down onto the beach heading for the cliffs at the far end where there were some small caves we hoped to use. I had chosen to shoot late in the day which as with the previous Psylocke shoot I do you two reason, one, the well know evening light is much more photogenic and secondly if there is zero cloud cover you've avoided the worst of the overhead glaring sun and get more diluted angled sun, however since it'd been a while since I'd done a beach shoot what I didn't factor in was tide times so the ocean was much higher than the previous time they had shot there.
We drove down as far as we could but still a couple of hundred meters from the cliffs and got out the scooters. Now this is where I need to point out I have never held a full drivers license, I'm not used to in anyway being in control of a motorised vehicle which I pointed out as I sat on the three-wheeled red scooter pictured in the circle below.
As the tide was closing in there was basically no sand to driver on just the rocks. The devices are electric and so can go too near the water and as we neared the cliffs there was less and less rock to drive on and I started getting very concerned that even if we get to the desired location the water would be so high I would be unable to get back. Another side effect of my condition is that my muscles seize up particularly when I'm nervous, and the problem with the scooter is that it has an accelerator like a motorcycle so its harder for me to relax and let go and more likely I'll squeeze it harder. So I was running out of beach, I had an untraversable rock slope to my left, the ocean 2 meters to my right and directly ahead across the available path a large rock in the sand, which I panicked and accelerated straight at flipping the scooter over sideways. Landing heavily on the rock missing the sand either side I was lucky not to have hit my head. Badly winded I lay there for a minute unable to get up, this is when I was hit by the first wave and the chilling cold it brought with it. I had rolled the scooter smashing the right side mirror, my assistant Leighlan had to help me up and put me on the other wheelchair that had 4 off-road wheels and a more stable base. After the shock wore off we then turned around and tentatively headed back to the parked car, while I convinced them I didn't need an ambulance, out of embarrassment more than anything.
We got back to the car and I insisted we still shoot as I wasn't going to come away with nothing. I was in a bit or pain but the adrenalin was riding high.
We put together my standard single light setup - a Jinbei HD610 with a 90cm gridded Octo softbox, in hindsight I should have removed the grid it wasn't doing much apart from losing
me a couple of stops of light. I also decided to shoot at an angle rather than straight out to sea, as the sun would have been directly behind Tiffany and I was already getting glare issues plus it gave us the coastline in the background.
I really would have liked to have shot the entire thing lower but I was in a bit of pain and there's no way I could get on the ground, additionally I hadn't brought a yoga mat to put on the rocks and the rising tide would have meant moving so even without the fall it would have been logistically difficult.
I started with some wider 50mm test shots to set foreground and background lighting which you can see above before switching to the more versatile but fucking heavy Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM Lens.
We started with some standing poses and some typical over the shoulder. While the rocks where annoying I did like to texture and colour they added to the shots.
It was quite loud so we had to often convene to discuss posses. You can see me in the BTS shots below describing the standard pose for the finished image above.
We moved into some knelling poses, where I often waited for the tide to hit to get the most out of the shapes the water made, like in the image below.
Here's the out-of-camera for the image above and I really tried to bring out detail and colour of the rocks and splashing water. I also want to make colours more intense particularly the yellow of the wetsuit as its basically the only splash of colour in the images.
We moved to some lying down and reclining poses. I love the sunset vibes we got in this image. Also these are examples of shots I would have loved to shoot lower, this would move the horizon line down to cut across the middle of the frame and we'd get some sky adding some depth to the shot.
There tide was sometimes a bit much though.
Worked back up into some knelling poses, again loved the rocks in the water which I really tried to enhance in post.
We finished off by bringing Tiffany right up to the camera, this finally put her at a better height, we added a reflector to the setup often referred to as a bum-light.
So the shoot had its difficulties shall we say. Looking at the shoot itself there was quite a bit of glare and I wish I had some kind of flag to put between me and the sun to keep the sun from hitting the lens. The glare meant to photos lacked a lot of contrast which I had to compensate for in post. It also affected focusing meaning a number of frames where not as sharp as Id like or completely out of focus.
I thought we had shot a lot longer and was surprised it was only and hour but we had to leave when we did due to the tide and driving off the beach.
Aftermath
Turns out I at least fractured a rib or two (they don't bother x-raying anymore because there's nothing they can do either way. The following week I was in a lot of pain mainly trying to lie down to sleep but I had been prescribed some good drugs at least.
I'd had my phone and and SD card and my phone in my pocket, the SD Card appears to have survived the phone however did not :(
Gear
Overview
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Characters: Lara Croft (Underworld)
Universe: Tomb Raider
Date: 13th February 2021
Location: Sellicks Beach, SA, Australia
Cosplayer: Tiffany Dean Cosplay
https://www.facebook.com/TiffanyDeanCosplay
Photographer: Steamkittens
https://www.facebook.com/steamkittens
Assistant: Leighlan Doe
Special thanks to: Tracy Dean for the BTS shots and Leonie Tagan for the transport options
Shoot Time: 1 hour
Total Frames: 211
