Air Whitney - Poolside Strobist

Note about this picture. It has been cropped so I don't divulge the outfit.

Apparently Angie and Katrina loved their military shoot with me, they started telling their friends about it. So, a co-worker of theirs wanted to surprise her significant other with pictures of her, too. Whit's beau is in the Air Force and wanted to have Air Force props in her shoot. We originally were going to shoot at the old Bakersfield Airport since there is an old jet at the entrance, but we couldn't sync our schedules. Instead we decided to go for an outdoor pool shoot and then an interior risque studio shoot.

The girls arrived at 6:00 PM and we headed out back for swimsuit shots. The weather was partly cloudy, but bright enough for my new 5-in-1 40" x 60" reflector. It's a really cool reflector since I can shoot two SB-600 through it with the reflective material removed and get a really nice diffused light. About half an hour into the shoot the sun disappeared behind some clouds. Photographer's delight, maybe when it is really bright out, but at dusk, contrast disappears and a reflector becomes useless. Unless you use it to bounce a speedlight off of it, which is what I did.

This shot was done with my SB-900 about 25 feet away 90 degrees from camera right, on the other side of the pool. The reflector was placed as a fill, just camera left. I placed a full CTO gel on the SB-900 and zoomed it to 200mm. I set the camera E/V to -.7 and had the SB-900 set to +1 E/V. Camera was set to commander mode. I wanted the SB-900 to simulate sunlight and the pool also acted as a reflector.

Anyway, we managed to shoot for about an hour while the sun continued to set, which forced me to introduce another speed light. I used an SB-600 with a shoot-thru umbrella as my key and the SB-900, snooted, as an accent light still placed across the pool and skimming across the pool surface. Again, both with CTO Gels, except the SB-600 was set with a 1/4 CTO Gel and the SB-900 with a full CTO.

The rest of the shoot was done in my garage with studio strobes. Not much to share regarding lighting set-ups. This was Whit's first shoot and she's not interested in modeling, just wanted to do something special for her beau.

Great shoot Whit, and thanks Ang for being there for moral support, make-up, and lighting.

I guess I should mention that this was my first paid gig, too. :-D

That's a Wrap!!!