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Photographer Gavin O’Neill gets it. He took Victoria’s Secret model Barbara Fialho to a beautiful island with a fabulous palm-tree formation beach and captured one of the most stunning features a female has to offer. We asked Gavin, “How smooth do you have to be to get a top model to shoot nudes when it seems an impossible task for most?”

Interview:

Gavin: I think it really just comes down to how comfortable the model is with you. In this case Barbara and I had met a few times previously and had both expressed how much we wanted to work together, so there was already a good level of trust and respect between us when i suggested this shoot to her.

STC: You are a well known photographer in the commercial industry and also with your artistic nudes. It seems that female/male form and symmetry plays a big role in your images.

Gavin: Yeah, I think that’s true because I basically taught myself photography and didn’t really know what I was doing in the beginning. I just went with my instincts when I took pictures and composition was one of the things I felt strongly connected. Still to this day that’s all I really work with and mostly keep all the other things like lighting, make-up, and styling very simple. I then search for beautiful form, angles, and composition. I guess that’s why I have gravitated towards nudes and beauty as the two areas I mostly work with because they both depend on shape and composition.

STC: Any favorite cameras?

Gavin: I shoot 5D Mark III (35mm) and PhaseOne – medium format.

STC: What was Barbara Fialho like and did she fulfill your photographic expectations and visa versa?

Gavin: Barbara is a total pro, she’s such a hard worker, and also a very nice person so it’s easy to see why she is so successful. The timing of our shoot was perfect too because the day we shot was the same day when the 2014 Victoria’s Secret show was televised in the US. She was in fantastic shape and I hardly had to do any post production. And to top things out, I found a very beautiful remote beach in Mexico to shoot on with perfect light and breeze and not a person in sight. We had the feeling we were alone in paradise for the day which gave us both a sense of freedom. This certainly was one of the most enjoyable shoots either one of us had done in the longest time.

STC: We also admire your negative vs. positive compositions which can be seen on your website and images around the world. It’s seems that your early style still has a strong influence on your work today.

Gavin: Yeah, I don’t think I have changed anything much since I started, I like a sense of space which has always been the case in my photography. You will hardly see any houses, trees, or anything that may interfere with the background. Instead, I prefer to work with clear and simple surroundings and I often use stark contrasty backgrounds to bring out the subject.

STC: What next? What does future hold for you photographically speaking?

Gavin: I guess more of the same but better. That’s all I really want to do in my career is keep creating, but also to keep climbing the industry ladder. And it’s not really a status thing, for me as quite an artistic person its also about having the best ingredients to work with. So I’m chasing bigger jobs and bigger budgets because of course I want to be successful, but also because they bring better models, locations, creative teams and just more possibilities to create higher quality pictures, and I think that’s all that any photographer wants.

STC: There you go and we leave Gavin’s images to do the rest of the talking. Make sure to check out Gavin’s website http://www.gavinoneill.com for additional masterpieces and photographic inspiration.