Sensuous

A couple months back I was perusing one of the many magazines I either purchase at the checkout counter, or subscribe to, and  a came across the Estee' Lauder advertisement for Sensuous perfume.  I thought to myself, what cool shoot that would be.  So, I went and purchased a white tuxedo shirt and bow tie, and then waited for the right model to come along.

After the two shoots with Nikki last week, I figured she was the right model based on her looks, relationship with the camera and our ability to work pretty well together.  She's pretty open to my suggestions and ideas, and best of all she does her own hair and make-up, so no need for a MUAHS.

This past Friday I was talking with Brian about my shoot with Nikki and how it was going to contain both High-Key and Low-Key images, with some images in Black and White and other images in Color.  Brian also shared Zack Arias' web-site with me; I actually have visited the site before when I was researching High-Key lighting.  However, I never finished reading the High-Key portraits.  My advice, check out his site if you are a strobist.  It'll help you improve your photography and at a reasonable price, too.  There's some DIY stuff that can be purchased at Lowes or Home Depot.

Anyway, I asked Nikki if she would be my model for the Sensuous shoot and she agreed. We planned the shoot for Saturday after I found out I didn't have to work due to work-related issues, but that's another digression.  As an aside, I promised I wouldn't blog about Nikki's punctuality for this shoot.  Actually she was on time and brought her daughter along, Haydn.  Anyone with kids knows how hard it is to be anywhere on-time with little ones in tow.  Of course I didn't make any promises about divulging Nikki's ability to eat.  Last week during our Junkyard shoot, she ate faster than us guys and this week she powered through two pieces of pizza while I was still finishing my first piece.  Nikki, if you are reading this, one word, "FORK!?!"

This shoot involved some pretty simple lighting, for the low-key images I used two RPS Studio 160WS Monolights.  The key was a in a 31" Brolly/Octabox 45 degrees either camera left or camera right, and the Hair/Accent  was a boomed monolight with the 24 x 28 softbox behind the model facing forward.  The high-key lighting involved three lights, two were used for background too light the Snow White Seamless paper and the third was the key, still in the 31" brolly/octabox.  I won't go into the light meter readings since you can find that information out on Zack's web-site, but for high-key suffice it to say that the background is basically one stop brighter than the key.

So what did I learn?  Hmmm....that's a good question.

•  Probably should have moved the hair/light a little closer since Nikki's hair is dark, or at least pumped up the power.  The light meter readings were pretty good and matched the key.
• Checklist: I forgot the hat Nikki was supposed to wear, she tried it on and we left it on the table in the house.
• Replace my RPS strobes since they are starting to malfunction.  Oh that's right I'm waiting for Paul C. Buff to release the Einsteins. Again, hard to justify, for the price of one Einstein, I can buy another set of 3 RPS 160WS Monolights.

Okay so I don't have a shoot scheduled with Nikki for at least 17 days, whew, but she does make a good muse.  Hopefully I won't have to cancel anymore shoots since the weather is getting nicer.

Thanks for reading, and "That's A Fork!!!"  I mean "Wrap!!!"