Spontaneity

On Wednesday, March 17, I received an e-mail from Model Mayhem Model Sean Logan.  He's a Pro BMX rider who grew up in the OC and lives in Hollywood.  He happened to be traveling to Bakersfield to do a couple riding demos and messaged me for a quick shoot Thursday night.  I agreed, but decided I wanted to do a "couples" shoot and also a BMX shoot.  Sean agreed and decided we could start around 6:00 PM.  I called Model Mayhem Model, Nikki, to help out and she agreed.  Everything was falling into place.

Thursday arrived and I picked up Sean at his hotel.  Bad news, his buddies went out to lunch and hadn't come back.  Not a big deal except his BMX bike was in their van.  Oh well, no "action" shots.  As soon as we started heading to the location, Nikki called and said she was waiting for us; good sign.

First series was all natural light using my brand new 4' x 6' California Sunbounce with the Gold/Silver Zebra material and shot between 5:30 PM and 7:00 PM in the Kern River and Highway 99. The river is much greener than when I photographed NiTasha in the river back in November.

I invited fellow photographers Robert and Brian along to help shoot, besides earlier in the day I asked Brian to bring his 85mm f/1.8 lens for me to try.  So this shot was all natural light and probably around 7:15 PM and Nikki was facing towards the west with the sun already set underneath Hwy 99.

After we finished up at the River, Sean called his buddies to see if we could pick-up the bike, but apparently they didn't answer.  We decide we'd do some nighttime photography and headed downtown.  I still like using the "One Light" method and looked for other options to either provide for fill lighting, or accent lighting.

As we were looking around, we met with a new downtown business owner of the Doo-Wop Diner, a humorous and older gentleman.  Nikki noticed a black exterior wall on the side of the diner and so we set-up our gear and proceeded to shoot.   Simple lighting, all done with ambient and my SB-900 with a 1/4 CTO gel and my 31" Octabox from RPS Studio.  It doesn't really work with my speedlight, but who cares, as long as I can get some nice quality light.

So what did I learn?
  • Hmmm....Don't do a spontaneous shoot because it forces you to be creative in a relatively short period of time.  Actually, it should read "Do a Spontaneous shoot".  It was fun and everyone laughed and joked and no one was too serious.  It gave me an opportunity to work with Nikki and get the initial shoot out of the way.  Especially since we had another shoot lined up for Saturday, March 20 at a junkyard.
  • I really need to work on my Couples posing.  Although it was kinda awkward for both Nikki and Sean since they have never worked together.  I know, as models, that shouldn't be an issue, but they weren't getting paid.
  • Be careful when using my Sunbounce, during set-up I put a slight tear in the pocket.  ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!
Well it definitely was nice to get away from the Studio and do some On Location stuff again.  I can't wait for my Junkyard shoot with Nikki.

Peace and Love and "That's A Wrap!!!"

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