Hot Devon, Cool Joe

This week's challenge was to do a nighttime shoot. I've been practicing with my gels, shadows and other lighting tools. Awhile back, my FLICKR friend Steve, posted some night shots and shared Dustin Diaz's FLICKR Site. I decided I needed to get out there and do some shooting. Prior to the shoot, I re-read Joe McNally's Hot Shoe Diaries and really liked his "Alley" shoot. I figured I would mimic that shot, but with a slight fashion feel.


I contacted Model Mayhem newbie Devon and asked if she would be interested in shooting with me. She agreed and scheduled the shoot for around 8:00 PM Saturday night. To help build her portfolio, we decided to do a few wardrobe changes from different locales around Bakersfield. My eldest son went along to help me with setting up and breaking down the lighting gear.

We arrived at our first destination at 7:30 PM, the Nile Theater and then ended up near the Fox Theater around 10:00 PM. We wrapped up at 11:00 PM since Devon had another shoot in the morning. Devon was great in both taking direction and giving suggestions. I'm sure we'll be shooting together in the future. I have no doubt she'll be a very busy model.

A majority of the shots were done with my SB-900 in TTL mode as the key with a full CTO and shot through either a mini-softbox or 1/4" HONL honeycomb grid. For additional lighting effects, I used my SB-600 in TTL Mode with a color effects gel. I also set my camera's White Balance to tungsten to given an additional coolness to the background.



What did I learn on this shoot?
Careful when dragging the shutter especially with ambient light. In the shot near the Fox Theater, I placed my softbox between the model and the parking lot Sodium Vapor light, but the light still managed to cast it's glow on her right arm, leaving a blue-ish grey tint and secondary shadow. I probably should have used my other SB-600 as a soft fill, with a full CTO gel, camera left to counteract the light contamination. I need to purchase a LCD loupe since I didn't see the problem on the LCD when I reviewed the picture on-site.





That's a Wrap!!!