Candle Caress

From an entirely candle-lit series I did on the fifth shoot with Adele. Just love the way Adele got mesmerised by the candles as we were shooting - she has what I've found to be that rarest of talents for a model - simultaneously knowing exactly where you are as a photographer to position herself for the best angle, and at the same time totally ignoring you and going right into her own space.

I was luck enough to be able to borrow a Carl Zeiss f/1.4 lens from a friend. It has to be close to the ultimate portrait lens but incredibly challenging to work with.

For one thing it is entirely manual focus and it's amazing how deskilled at focussing you get as a photographer using all the auto-focus lenses that are now pretty much standard. The other challenge is that at the very low f-stop required to catch candlelight the depth of field is very, very narrow meaning it is very hard to get the key elements across the image in sharp focus.

All in all one of the most challenging shoots I've done in a long time but the lovely thing about working with someone as good as Adele is that as a photographer you don't have to do much directing so I could concentrate on the many technical challenges.