Repose

Another week of 100 degree weather in Bakersfield makes it difficult to shoot outdoors, or even in my studio. Model Mayhem Model Ashley V. asked if I would be interested in doing a bikini shoot with her. I've had my share of bikini shoots recently (Devon, Sammy and Tonya)and although most men like them, I prefer something a little more artistic and emotive. I agreed to do the bikini shoot with one stipulation, that Ash would also do some Natural Light shots wearing a black sweater.

I invited my friend Teresa, a.k.a. HyeStyleShots, to come and shoot with me. We last shot together on my Dark Princess session.

Ashley and her hubby, arrived at 1:30 PM and we started with the black sweater shoot. My son C.J. helped me move some furniture around positioned our love-seat next to the window. Our house has windows facing East and West, so we get some really nice cross lighting, especially with the vaulted ceilings. I also placed a white sheet on the couch to act as additional fill.

Pretty simple lighting, window light camera left and reflector just camera right. The reflector was literally right next to me, and of course the white sheets bounced light all over the place. However, the strobist in me had to throw an punch of light from the windows on the left by placing my SB-900 outside pointing through the window. It looked good, but I prefer the softness of the natural light. I did shoot at ISO 400, but again the D700's sensor is excellent at even ISO 1600 with very minimal noise. I shot at f2.8 a majority of the time and shutter 1/60. I tried to keep myself at 50mm focal length for no reason. During a break, I pulled out my Nikon FE2 and fired off a couple frames of film on Ashley. The picture in this paragraph was shot with my 35mm film camera. Not too bad.

Once we finished the black sweater shots, we moved outside around 3:00 PM. Harsh sunlight, worse time to shoot, right? I brought out my 40" x 60" reflector, but had my son remove the material to expose the diffuser. We basically shot about half the pictures with the diffuser, the other half with an SB-900 at Auto FP 1/250. This shot was f/5.6, focal racked out at 190mm ISO 100 and 1/200 shutter. I was lying on the ground and asked Ashley to close her eyes. Again, I prefer more emotive stuff, probably just a phase, but I do like this picture of Ash. The top picture was a similar shot. I asked Ash to wet her hair for the remainder of the shoot, and as she was leaning back I fired a few shots from almost ground level.

I'd say that models have it rough, but with our last two shoots, Ash got to lay in bed, and cool off in my pool while it was 100 degrees outside. We finished up by 3:30 due to the heat. I can't wait for Fall to really come, which according to the forecast, we'll be seeing temperatures in the mid-80's by this upcoming weekend. Just in time for my two shoots. In fact, I'm pretty booked for the month of October and one of these days, I'm going to start charging.

What did I learn?
1) Experiment more with shooting in broad daylight by combining my huge diffuser with a strobe. It was just too hot to mess around with both tools
2) Purchase a Hoodman Loupe, it's just to hard to read the back of the LCD in bright daylight.
3) Continue to have fun when shooting. My friend Teresa took this picture of Ash and I, which I really like. Ash is fun to work with and has funny sense of humor.
4) Don't be afraid to ask for help. My son really helped out with holding the reflector and speedlights. Makes it easier since I don't need to worry about lightstands, or holders.

Ash and I tease each other about not calling each other to collaborate, I complain that my phone must be broken since I never get her calls and she accuses me of drinking Hatorade. Kid slang for being a Hater.

That's a Wrap!!!