Monday 25 April 2016

The Nomadic Model and the 3 -2 -3 Shoot Part 2

In our previous instalment I introduced you to Roarie Yum the world travelling model and our adventure in commercial fashion lighting. Well that was just the beginning !





We could not go through a shoot with out doing some of my popular 'fashion nude' work, so while Roarie changed outfit I reset the lights. Or rather I turned off the octobox and placed a grid over the beauty dish. In the space of a minute I had a whole new look ! Remember I'm using a speed-light through a 22" beauty-dish, nothing fancy. It's just a matter of choosing the dish angle and power output. 




Then Roarie Yum stepped in front of my lens and delivered a performance that yielded a treasure trove of images that I then had to organize and make my selections from. In the end I settled on three sets of four pictures. That's twelve images worthy of publication from a session that lasted forty minutes out of a three hour shoot !




The simple truth is know what you want, go for it and make sure you cast properly ! Do not make do with the 'girl next door' go out and cast your model, use ModelMayhem - PurplePort - BeScouted, you will be rewarded !




Oh, and just to let you know, there is a third part to this shoot !
(See the rest of the sets - HERE )

More T.K.

Wednesday 13 April 2016

The Nomadic Model and the Three Look Two Light Three Hour Shoot

So last month I was contacted by a model who was visiting the UK. She had seen my portfolio on PurplePort and thought that we might work well together. Well, after a quick look at her work, I knew the answer had to be 
The models name is RoarieYum and she is an established professional model. Best of all she has spent the last three years living out of a backpack travelling the world and paying her way working with photographers of every level in every country. Even landing work with established names. You have probably seen her fine art photographs on the internet and now you know the name.
The fact that such a capable and established model wanted to work with me was one thing. 
The fact that she was down to earth and a bit of a nerd was a God send !

OK, so we agreed to a three hour shoot with just four days to put something together. I didn't just want to repeat myself though. Three hours is a long time to be taking pictures and I know how quickly I can work when in my comfort zone plus I wanted some extra variety to keep things interesting for both of us..
Recently I have been watching Lara Jade and Emily Soto post BTS videos and video blogs about fashion photography and the industry. There was one lighting set up in particular that caught my attention. Two lights, an octobox to the side and an octa or umbrella overhead (and in front) facing down. Get the balance right and you had clear bright almost natural light. Well, seeing as I had just invested in a 22" beauty dish, this seemed like a great opportunity to experiment with a new look. Something a bit more commercial and fashionable.



                               

So after a shopping trip that resulted in two outfits and the addition of a chair bought from a charity shop it was time to shoot idea number one -







As you can see when the model looks up to the dish the light is brighter yet, even when turned away from the octobox there is enough light to wrap around and stop the shadows from getting too dark. The brim of the hat doesn't even cast a nasty shadow over the eyes. All I had to do was adjust the power of the two lights until I was happy. When you consider that the octobox is fitted to a Bowens Gemini 250 watt and the diffused beauty dish is attached to a speed light you realise how forgiving this set up is. 
final treatment was a little image clean up and then toning was done in Lightroom. I set the white balance to Cloudy - it was that simple !

Best of all we went on to shoot two more different ideas with the same set up and achieved completely different results !

More on that later, 

More,T,K