Sammy's Story - Rendezvous

So the theme of this shoot is "Rendezvous". Beautiful woman waiting for her date to arrive. I'm starting to think I have abandonment issues. lol.

Anyway, Model Mayhem Model Sammy Storey and I have been trying to get together for a shoot since early April and finally our schedules sync'ed up, May 19 was the date. I've been wanting to shoot downtown Bakersfield at a sidewalk cafe, and now was my chance. A thespian friend had a rehearsal meeting at the Stars Dinner Theater the same night as my shoot, and since I helped with setting up their A/V equipment, he allowed me to shoot in the cafe portion of the restaurant.

I asked a fellow photographer, Brian to join me for the shoot. Brian also worked with me on my first model shoot back in February and then again on my Harley Cowgirl shoot. I would classify Brian as an artist that uses photography as his medium. We started shooting in front of a night club, The Nile, at 6:15 PM until the light started ducking behind the trees. It was about 7:00 PM when we moved to the dinner theater for shoot number two.

We scoped out the place, moved some tables around decided to try a Joe McNally strobist shoot. The restaurant has a huge front window that faces east towards Chester Ave. (basically the Main St. in our town.) There really wasn't much available light, and without a tripod ISO 6400 would be the ticket. Instead it was time to whip out the Nikon Speedlights, I set-up my SB-900(key) and SB-600(fill) with shoot-thru umbrella. Both Flashes had CTO Gels, the SB-600 with a 1/4 CTO. Brian built a really cool reflector to insert his SB-800 into, so we decided to use his SB-800 as the key light.

Watching and listening to Brian and I set-up our lights must have been pretty funny to Sammy and her beau, Elijah. "I'm going to set my camera's E/V to -1, Group A +.7 E/V and Group B -2.0 E/V, I'll use Slow Sync to drag the shutter and saturate the background." It all sounds good until you start squeezing off shots and reviewing histograms, etc...

So Brian put his SB-800 outside the front window to act as our key, and I placed the SB-600 with the umbrella, just camera right. Both were set to TTL and both equipped with CTO gels. I used my 24mm - 70mm lens to get some funky looking shots and my 70mm - 200mm for more traditional portrait shots. As the sky turned black, we realized that the reflective material on the front window was interfering with the camera's light pulses. Fortunately we were able to keep moving the SB-800 closer to the window without getting blown highlights on Sammy's face. TTL rocks!!! The picture above looks like the setting sun, which was what we wanted. After several poses and camera angles, we wrapped at 8:30 PM.

So what did I learn?
Technically, not much on this shoot went wrong. No time constraints, except the sun and the reflective window tinting. Except that in my rush to get the speedlights set-up, I mounted my umbrella holder upside-down on my light stand which means the flash and the shoot-thru umbrella don't pivot together. Good catch Brian. Overall a great shoot, so thanks to Sammy, Elijah, Brian and my friend Brent.

Strobist Info:
SB-800 (Key) TTL Mode with 12" Reflector and CTO Gel +0.7 E/V
SB-600 (Fill)TTL Mode with shoot-thru umbrella and 1/4 CTO Gel -2.0 E/V
D700 Commander Mode and Global E/V -.03 and Slow Sync Flash

Photo Info:
f-stop: 2.8
Shutter: 1/60
Focal: 116mm
ISO: 200
Metering: Matrix

That's a Wrap!!!