My very first model shoot was back in February of 2009. At that time I had about four months of minimal experience using my first dSLR (Nikon D60) and about two months using my SB-900 Flash. One of the models I got to shoot with was Sara, albeit it was rather brief. Since then we've chatted on MySpace and Facebook about collaborating and attended another shoot together last May.
At the beginning of this year I agreed to do her Maternity shoot, but wanted to wait until she was ready to deliver. This weekend marked her final week and many jokes were made about her delivering at Studio in the RAW.
Earlier in the week I was showing my buddy, Brian, some images I wanted to do and thought I could use my 86" PLM placed behind my white muslin to emulate window light, but Brian suggested I open the garage door and clip my white muslin to the open door.
The day of the shoot the forecast called for cloudy skies. What luck, diffused light. Wardrobe wasn't an issue since the majority of the images were implied. Sara was nervous about shooting implied images, which she doesn't do, but decided this was a very important event in her life and her boyfriend/photographer (Michael) was very supportive.
A majority of the shoot was done with the open door set-up and the occasional use of a white reflector or blow dryer held by Michael. We did shoot some images with Studio Lights, but we really liked the Natural Light images. I used two lenses for the shoot, 24mm-70mm Tele-photo and my 85mm Prime. The Aperture was either at f/2.8 or f/1.8, depending on the lens, and shutter was between 1/60th and 1/125 at ISO 200.
What did I learn? On this shoot, nothing I didn't already know. Natural Light during a cloudy day is unpredictable. Sometimes the sun peeks out and sometimes the cloud cover thickens.
More Maternity images can be found on my
FLICKR site. I have one more Maternity Shoot at the end of the month, but Nikki is being a "brat", using her words. So I'm not sure where we'll shoot, but maybe On Location at Hart Park. Not Really.
Thanks for reading and
That's A Wrap!!!
I wanted to tell you how much we appreciate your work. The photos were amazing and Sara has seemed in much greater spirits after seeing she is still the same beautiful woman. I learned a lot watching you work and hope that I can one day create images that are as amazing as yours. Thanks for everything and I look forward to shooting with you some day.
ReplyDeleteMichael Gray