As an engineer I have always been intrigued as to how things are made. I am reassured by having at least a working knowledge of how stuff is put together, just in case I should ever need to fix it. It is an instinctive thing. On this shoot in Turkey (not a Turkey shoot ) the main back door to the villa was a big heavy thing with a triple action lock. It also had a couple of dead locks. Yet the patio doors all around the ground floor were just lift and slide so the whole thing was largely pointless. In this clip, mid shoot, one of the crew gets stuck inside the kitchen and there follows endless clicking and turning of keys and pulling at handles and after a while (we edited lots out) I disappear off through the patio door to lend a hand from within. Lycia is distinctly unimpressed by the whole affair.
I love the parallel universes between the finished images - polished, natural, inspirational, stunning beauty, a work of art, and the production of such which in so many respects is absolutely matter of fact - perfunctory, relaxed, casual and at times even a little boring. I love the paradox of the end and the means being entirely separate things. I was worried about posting this for spoiling the illusion for fans but one of the big selling points about Lycia's site is you see the real her. You get to experience the whole process - not just the pics and vids but how she goes about making them. Sometimes on shoots we are under pressure to deliver but much of the time it is just having a laugh, like the clip above. With the right location and the best models, the pictures often make themselves. The photographer is more of a project manager and logistician, whose role it is to create the perfect environment for the model to perform; to take care of all the details. Just like engineering really