That's What Friends Are For

I had a make up shoot Sunday, November 1 with Model Mayhem Model DieForSarahLynn.  We were supposed to shoot back in September, but some how got our messages crossed.  Anyway, we scheduled the shoot and my key grip (a.k.a. my son C.J.) had to go to work, so fortunately my photographer friend Teresa (a.k.a. HyeStyleShots) was available.  I scheduled the shoot for 3:00 PM since we had to fall back to Standard time, and I wanted to get some Golden Hour shots.  This shoot consisted of three locations and three wardrobe changes for Sarah Lynn.  I did my usual deserted road stuff, but really wanted to get some lens flare and heavy backlighting.  One caveat with shooting directly toward the sun with an Autofocus camera is that the sun deflects the light returning back to the sensor.  So basically it's better to go Manual.  I used a trick my Dad showed me and that's to Zoom all the way in on the eyes and try to get tack sharp, and then zoom back out.  As you can see in the first pic, I got some flare, but not enough to create the colorful spheres that you see in some shots.  Also, Teresa used a gold reflector to act as a fill and the sun provided some killer rim lighting.  Sarah's hair is bleach blonde, so it gets easily blown out.  We had some really good shots and some funny ones, especially when an 18-wheeler blew by Sarah and the wind almost knocked her backwards.

We shot for about 40 minutes and moved to an abandoned auto repair shop.  Again, mostly ambient light, but did use an SB-900 with a 1/4 CTO gel and 1/4" honeycomb grid.  I liked this local, but it was really close to a busy street so I couldn't far enough away for some full body Selective Focus shots. Sarah definitely attracted the attention of passing cars with her beautiful looks and killer tattoos.  I must say that I'm not attracted to women with tattoos, but Sarah has a sleeve that is very beautiful and similar to  Yakuza-style tattoos.  We did mostly mixed lighting, with the sun acting as a key light and the SB-900 as the fill light.

After about 45 minutes the sun began setting and I really wanted to get to the abandoned motel to finish our shoot.  I've eaten many times at the restaurant that sits on the corner of the street, which blocks this old Bates-style motel (constructed like the Motel in the original Hitchcock movie Psycho).   I knew I wanted to use my SB-600 with a green gel to give the motel an eerie feeling.  My friend Teresa suggested I try to light the Motel sign.  So, I laid on the ground positioned the green gelled SB-600  speedlight out of frame, camera left and had Teresa hold the SB-900 (in a mini-softbox and 1/4 CTO Gel) camera right 45 degrees, and vertically.  We shot for about another half hour until it was 5:30 and called it a day.  I went manual mode instead of Aperture Priority because I needed to drag the shutter and get more ambient light into the shot.  Interesting thing about Bakersfield air pollution, it makes for purplish haze at dusk instead of a deep indigo. Teresa has a great sense of humor, which makes her a fun person to shoot with. As I was laying down on the dirty, broken glass strewn sidewalk, Teresa yelled, "Watch out!!! you are laying on a condom!!!"

So what did I learn?

1) An the roadside shoot, don't go to 24mm, the vignetting stinks and it's hard to control the exposure. Several of the shots had some blown highlights.  I did remove the lens hood since that creates some real intense vignetting.
2) Purchase the Hoodman Loupe and get the other SB-600 repaired.  The bright sun makes it hard to see the LCD panel, and I really wanted one more gel for the motel, but since I broke my other SB-600 I've been sacrificing some of my creativity

Anyway, thank you for reading my blog, and I  hope you learn some stuff along the way.  Shout out to both Sarah Lynn for being a GREAT and patient model, and to Teresa for being a great assistant!!!  Hopefully Sarah will work with me again.  She is definitely photogenic and I'd like to do some "softer" type looks with her.

That's a Wrap!!!