What's New Pussycat

It's hard to believe that it's been a year since Sarah and I have worked together.  She moved away from Bakersfield and happened to be in town this week.  This was such as last minute shoot that I didn't know if we were going to be able to pull it off.

We met at 7:30 PM as the sun was setting, so we really didn't have a lot of time to plan out the shoot. I brought my speed lights, a SABER STRIP and my brolly.  Originally Robert, Brian and I were going to shoot some more film with our Medium Format cameras, but once Sarah agreed to shoot, we switched to our dSLRS, well except Rob, he brought both.

With the sun quickly setting, I decided to use my 85mm f/1.4G lens.  I wanted to play around with Spot Metering for most of the Natural Light images.

After the sun went down, we switched to our speedlights and had Sarah change her wardrobe.

Brian decided to use my Saber Strip and Pocket Wizards, while I used my brolly and Nikon CLS. WE started shooting, but I kept having issues with focusing in the darkness.  I noticed that my AF-Assist wasn't working on my camera, but I kept shooting and using Manual Focus.  It wasn't until later that I found out that the AF-Assist light only illuminates when the Single-Point Focus rectangle is set to the middle point of the Focus grid.  Live and Learn.

We shot for about another 20 minutes and then wrapped at 8:30 PM.  We accomplished what we wanted, which was a spontaneous shoot at twilight.  It was also fun to work with Sarah and the guys.

It's interesting to compare our shooting styles and processing styles.  If you didn't click on Rob and Brian's link above, I suggest you do so and see their work.

What did I learn?

• The main problem I ran into was the AF-Assist light not illuminating.  I realized I really stink at Manual Focus in the dark.  The fix, I had a spare light stand a clamp that will hold a flashlight to aim at the model.  So next night shoot, I'll have that ready to go.

I have a couple shoots this weekend, one Senior Portrait session and one Maternity session.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.  If you have any questions, please fell free to e-mail me at alan@illusivephotography.com and I'll share what little I know.