I remember being struck by how beautiful and stunning Coco Deville's face was when I first met her in the Hotel Du Vin bar in Brighton.
I normally like to shoot people full length and vary rarely do a close up head shot unless they have a really interesting face. Well there was no debate in the matter, this portrait called for a close up. So I looked around the hotel bar and spotted a plain black curtain that I thought would make a great back drop. When i'm doing these editorial portraits I like to work quickly and with minimal fuss with my lighting. So i'll only use one light, or occasionally two flashes off camera. This portrait called for a very simple set up and I knew that I wanted to make it quite a dark image with a bit of shadow. So, for the technical people reading this, I zoomed my flash head in, so that it created more of a concentrated hot spot of light, rather than a broader more spread out light. And bounced it of the low ceiling a few feet above Coco's head.
There is something that I find just so mesmerising about Coco's eyes in this shot. I'm not sure what it is....but she surely has 'it'.