Seeing Red

For those that don't know, I have a full-time job that keeps me busy 40+ hours a week Monday through Friday, while photography is just a hobby to release stress.  So when I shoot, I schedule them for the weekend and at least a couple weeks out in the event the weather is awesome for a motorcycle ride, which takes preference, and I need to cancel a shoot. ;)

Monday afternoon I received a message from Joy, stating that she would be "home" this week and wanted to know if we could shoot Wednesday.  What, during the Week!?!  Actually my response was more like "Heck Yeah!!!" It's Joy, it would be foolish on my part to turn her down.

What to shoot? What to shoot?  Oh, Little Red Riding Hood in a wooded area and maybe some Red Paper Lanterns that I need to test for an upcoming shoot with Jessica.  I messaged Make-up Artist Clara Torres, bless her heart, she was available.

We met at 5:30 to head out and luckily the Paper Lanterns were sitting on the doorstep.  We scouted out the location and found some interesting areas to set-up and shoot.  The first few images were shot with Available light.  Joy knew that we would have to work quickly because the sun pretty fast.  She would get into a pose and within minutes I'd tell her, step forward to move into the light.

I tried shooting the Paper Lanterns along with a metal lantern with a small votive candle in it, but I couldn't snoot the flash enough to give the appearance that the light on her face was coming from the candle.  At one point she asked if she could put the lantern down because it was getting hot.  Sheesh, that metal was really hot, so "Thanks Joy" for being a "pro".

We moved to an area with burnt out trees and setup for the top image in this post.  SB-900 with 1.25 CTO Gel and shoot through umbrella as the key light, with my son Drew acting as the "Key Grip"and an SB-600 in each lantern for fill.  We wrapped at 7:45 due to the darkness and because we were all getting hungry.

The usual "grub" session at Love Sushi and a quick review of images. A huge shout out to Joy for shooting with me and to Clara for doing that magic she does so well.