Out of the Blue

Last year I was browsing Model Mayhem for local models to photograph and came across Micah Blue's profile page.  I planned to Private Message (PM) her until I read her Profile page that stated she is a signed agency model and only does TF work if she initiates it.  TF is an acronym  Time For or Trade For, I can't recall, but basically it is a collaboration among photographer, model, make-up artist, hair stylist, and others where no one pays for the shoot, but rather trades their time for prints from the photo shoot, or a CD-ROM of images, etc... (e.g. TFP = Time For Print, TFCD = Time for CD-ROM)

On September 25, I received an e-mail on Model Mayhem from Micah asking me if I would be interested in working with her.  Hmmm.....I thought long and hard about it before responding and after 12 minutes sent her a message with a resounding "Yes!!!"  Originally we planned to shoot at the beginning of 2011, but then Micah decided she didn't want to wait.  We went over some ideas for wardrobe and determined we would shot in my garage, uh, Studio.

On the day of the shoot we did four different looks and used my Beauty Dish as the key light in all shots except for the low-key tuxedo shirt, where I used my 40" brolly.  The Key was metered at f/8, except for the low-key shot, which was metered at f/5.6.  I used my Ring Flash as a fill light and usually set that three stops below the key, so for this shoot it went from f/4 to f/2.8.  Other lights used was my strip box, barn doors and even my SB-900 with a HONL Purple Gel for the Sensuous Noir look.  We started at 1:30 PM and finished at 4:00 PM and cranked out 100 images, which all came out decent.

It was a very productive shoot and Micah's experience as a model really showed.
So what did I learn?

• I can use my Speedlights "in studio" with some predictability
• Shoot with trained models - they make it easier when it comes to working the key and posing
• Keep that fill light going even if it looks good chimping - Histograms and LCD displays are deceiving

No more shoots lined up for October since I'll be busy volunteering at work helping distribute Flu vaccines. On that note, Stay Healthy, Get your Flu shots if you fall into the high-risk group and "That's A Wrap!!!"