Model Shoot - Natalie R

Kicked off 2011 with my first photo shoot of the year with model Natalie from Charles Stuart International. Makeup was done by Jennifer Schulz and styling by Cyndy. My hat goes off to the incredible team and especially Natalie for braving the cold and being a true professional. I think it was just above freezing that day and as the sun started setting it got even colder. For this shoot I used a Profoto 7b with a five foot octabank and a bare head with a reflector. Working with portable packs and a big light source outdoors is a lot of fun and when it's almost pitch dark nothing lights up the scene better. Here are some shots from that photo shoot.

These last two shots were done when the sun had already set and it was so cold that in between takes Jennifer and Cyndy would come and wrap Natalie up in a blanket to keep her warm.

Zuka Shoot with Ali and Samantha

As promised here are some more final edits from the shoot that I did a few weeks ago with Ali from Lexington Models and Samantha from JK Models. The makeup and hair was done by Natalie Jean who happens to also be a fantastic model with John Casablancas and the jewelry was from Kari Staten of Zuka Artful Accessories. This was shot in a park near Kari's studio where she designs and makes all of her wonderful creations. The photo shoot started around the mid afternoon and the sun was perfect. Not too high in the sky to create unflattering shadows and not too blindingly low for the models. I stuck with pretty much just a big reflector for these and used it as either a fill or as a blocker. Here are some shots from that day starting with Samantha.

In the shot below where Ali is lying on the grass I actually took off the reflector cover and just used the translucent fabric as a shade. Open shade created this way is actually a very beautiful light and is very soft. I shot that one wide open with a 50mm at 1.4 so you can see the shallow depth of field. It was actually kind of tricky because I was standing over her and the minimum focus distance at that range meant I had to do some balancing on my toes. Note to self is to bring along a small step ladder for shoots like these in the future.

Model Shoot - Clayton

On my last day of class at Vancouver Photo Workshops I did two separate shoots and the other model that I worked with that night was Clayton. He was styled by Amanda that evening. We did a similar edge lighting setup that I had used before and the look with the grey suit and sunglasses worked out well. Amanda brought along a very stylish long leather coat that had great texture to it and it worked really well with both the edge lighting and also the full white background shots as well. The third lighting setup we had was a pair of Kino Flo lights against a brushed metal background. Here are a few shots from that evening.

Later that same week we teamed up again for a location shoot this time. Amanda once again pulled some great outfits together for the shoot. We did the shoot in the early evening just as the sun was starting to go down in the sky a bit. I was really hoping for a day with fewer clouds but as it turned that day was partly overcast. For the lighting on these shots I used a small softbox and portable strobe triggered by Pocket Wizards. I did some minor colour balancing in post to give it a warmer look too. Clayton had been talking about trying to get signed with an agency. He mentioned that his agent really liked the stuff we had done together and soon after these photos were taken he was signed on by Next Canada and it even has one of the photos we did together on his portfolio page. Congrats Clayton! Here are some of the location shots.

Location Shoot - Billiards Room with Natasha

For my last shoot I left the safe and controlled environment of the studio and did a location shoot at a billiard room with model Natasha. As soon as I stepped in I knew it was going to be one of the more challenging lighting situations that I have dealt with in awhile. This place had bright fluorescent lighting all around, tungsten lights above the billiard tables and neon in some areas of the ceiling. Also behind the bar area there was a very flat fluorescent light. So for billiard area shots I wanted to get some of the ambient from the lights above the tables to maintain the look of lit billiard tables. Solution was to do a three light setup and just feather in enough ambient light by playing with the shutter speed till I had the look I wanted. For the bar area I pretty much did away with any ambient and did it all with a three flash setup. One flash had a warm gel on it to light the bottles behind the bar and then Natasha was lit with a softbox as the key light and a shoot through umbrella for fill.

Location Lighting Workshop

Today was the Location Lighting Workshop at Vancouver Photo Workshops and it turned out that my instructor was Syx Langemann. We covered a lot about the different types of flashes used from the on camera flashes to the ones in the studio and on location. We also learned about key-lighting which I found to be really interesting whereby the flash becomes the main light in a outdoor environment. This is where you can vary your aperture to alter the ambient light and let the main flash over power it and create some really cool effects like a sunny day on an otherwise cloudy day like we had today. We also set up some pretty creative lighting setups in the studio with gels to add colour and depth to our shots. At one point we even had a strobe outside that was shooting into the studio through the window to simulate sunlight and cast an interesting shadow from the iron gating outside onto the wall. We had two models to shoot in the afternoon and they were excellent to work with. Here are some shots from today and I will start with some that were taken with just the on camera flash so you can see the difference. I used a Canon 430EX with a Stofen Omni Bounce.




Next up we have some shots using a strobe bounced of an umbrella.







Then we have some shots using a strobe bounced off an umbrella and another strobe with a blue gel bouncing off a wall behind the models.





We had a strobe outside of the studio shooting in through the window for these following shots and there is also a softbox inside the studio warm up the left side of the model as well.





For these shots we had strobe to camera left with a red gel on it and to camera right we had a softbox with a CTO gel on it.






And finally we took a single strobe and a battery pack outside into the overcast day and did some key-shifting. By using different white balances and exposure settings you can achieve some interesting effects.