Oz-picious

It's hard to believe that the last time Darnah and I worked together was back in June of 2011.  Darnah has been very busy running her father's business and has had little time to do any photo-shoots.  After many months of my begging, Darnah finally agreed to work with me.  Similar to Sarah, Darnah and I used to chat on Facebook, but over the past year we communicated less and less.

We decided we would shoot in her apartment and she sent me several ideas.  I arrived at 3:00 PM expecting to capture some Natural Light images, but she warned me that her apartment gets very little light expect for early in the morning.  She was right, I really had to bump up the ISO for a majority of our images.

We then moved to the Kitchen and I noticed that the lights were slightly different color temperatures, so I noticed she had some vertical blinds and enough room on her patio to set-up a bare flash.  I had her get up on her counter and placed my Orb opposite the window and pointed toward the camera to create a consistent Fill.  After a few lighting adjustments we were able to capture some interesting images.

We then moved to the Dining Room, cleared off the table, had a wardrobe change and started shooting.  Darnah has a painting that her father gave her, so I decided to include it in some images. The set-up required three speedlights, key, rim and background.

Darnah mentioned she wanted to take a few images that she could send to her "Mum", or at least be family-friendly.  I used her table lamp for the Christmas tree photos and then asked her to change into something a little more provocative.

The lighting was basically the Apollo ORB overhead and then fill flash bounced off the wall behind me.  By the time we finished it was 8:30 PM and I still had a two hour drive ahead of me.  We reviewed the images, shot some video, laughed and joked the entire time.

As with all shoots with Darnah, the time flies and the results speak for themselves.  I rarely like my images, but it seems that whenever I work with Darnah, I feel rejuvenated.

What Did I Learn?

• For the Natural Light Images, I should have cheated and put my Apollo Orb on the patio and shot back into the bedroom.  The images wouldn't have been Natural Light, but the end result would have looked natural.

Aside from that one change, this was one of the most enjoyable shoots in 2012.  Thanks "D" for being "real", witty and down-to-earth.