Photographing nude women in a scrap yard full of bits of sharp, oily metal. Not easy but the shoots produced some great pictures.

The Idea

The Scrap Yard Nudes calendar was conceived by the sales director of a metal recycling group. The company wanted to produce a glamour calendar that was more interesting than the average cheesecake versions available off the shelf. Commissioning original photography would allow the company’s products, several thousand tons of recycled metal, to feature in the pictures alongside local, East Anglian, nude models.

The Shoots

A metal recycling yard is full of exciting visual possibilities, even before you add nude or semi-nude women. The original concept was to produce ‘fine art’ style black and white images. Some directors of the company felt that their target audience would probably favour a little more glamorous theme and that maybe ‘art nudes would be a little too revealing.

See some of the finished images in The Scrap Yard Nudes Portfolio

When the final images were produced for the first years calendar the client was impressed enough to increase the size from a fairly modest A4 format calendar to A3 plus. Bearing in mind that in 2005 my Nikon DSLR only produced 7mb RAW images this was greeted by a confident ‘OK’ with my fingers firmly crossed.

Running some proofs proved that the digital files were up to the job. Fortunately, the sales director championed the idea of black and white and first year went to print with a large black and white and inset colour image for each month. Despite some glitches in the printing process, the completed calendar was distributed by Christmas.

Shooting nude girls in amongst sharp, greasy metal may seem like fun; well actually it is, but it offers a special set of challenges; soft bodies and jagged edges have to be kept apart, every surface that the models touched left greasy marks on their bodies and high heels are not the ideal footwear on uneven surfaces. Careful planning ensured the calendar remained in production for three years without any of the models or crew acquiring so much as a scratch.

Feedback from many of the company’s customers was good, and some of the models found themselves receiving VIP treatment in garages and exhaust centres throughout East Anglia. The target market proved more discerning that the company expected and subsequent editions were solely black and white with more creative nude images.

To provide the safest and most private environment for the girls the shoots were scheduled for Sundays; the only day that the yard was closed. The first Sunday dawned bright and sunny, a trend that continued for every subsequent year’s shoot.

Inevitably a few of the mostly male staff decided that they had something important to do at work on the first Sunday. I had deliberately picked models who I knew were confident if the occasional sightseer appeared. Most would probably have walked down the local high street naked if given the chance. As the camera began to click, I looked round to see the spectators had suddenly become rather embarrassed and disappeared into the offices.

I booked four models for each of two shoots. The idea was to use each of six girls on each of two months of the calendar​. The extras might be disappointed if they did not make the final edit but this gave us a wider choice of images and we were covered if there was a no show.

The core of the models I had worked with many times before but the budget meant that test shoots of new models were not feasible, so a few were booked on recommendations from other photographers, and only after a lengthy telephone interview.

Throughout the three years of shoots there was only one no show by a model who had been in the previous year’s calendar, one girl turned up looking vastly different to her portfolio shots and a third looked stunning in colour but, strangely, rather odd in black and white.

See some of the finished images and buy prints in The Scrap Yard Nudes Portfolio

Models Wanted in Norfolk

New models joined us for the following years shoots and, despite not having the resources or budget of the Pirelli Calendar we managed to produce some beautiful photographs, largely thanks to the hard work and dedication of the local models.

The calendar ran for three years; by which time, to quote the sales director, “We’d just about got the hang of it”. Then the company was sold and the new owners did not continue its publication.

More Scrap Yard Nude Glamour The Out Takes

Scrap Yard Nudes

Prints also available from Fine art America

Buy downloadable glamour sets of the Scrapyard Nudes

• 
  A Little Bit Kinky – Fetish Photography
• 
  Are Nude Models Exhibitionists?
• 
  Glamour Photography Portfolio
• 
  Scrap Yard Nudes
• 
  Fetish Book Cover Photographs
• 
  Victorian Style Portraits & Nudes
• 
  Scrap Yard Nude Glamour – Out Takes
• 
  What Wave? Wet Look Glamour

​

​

​