I joined the local camera club, around the corner from my house, about six or seven months ago. I went along to a studio accreditation session to learn the ropes and went to a lighting master class. Despite my best intentions it stalled there. My excuses were a) not having a suitable IR trigger to fire the studio strobes and b) not having a much lusted after EF 50mm f1.4 lens.
Birthday cash has made it totally possible to purchase both of these things, even though my ‘need’ of them was up for debate. Either way I’ve since been in the studio twice with my friends Rich and Gill. At the moment I’m mostly trying to get used to the studio set-up and be experimental - trying to learn what can be done. I’m pretty pleased with some of the results so far and thought I’d share some of them.
My favourite shot of Rich is this simple portrait. It took quite a while to get the lighting right though during my first shoot. It’s a pretty simple three point setup.
My next model was Gill - who was very kind and patient and came with all sorts off clothing options (a bit like a barbie doll in that respect - I hasten to add that the similarities stop there). I experimented a lot more with lighting and did some high-key lighting (overexposing much of the image), motion, lower-key lighting (shooting down) and colour. In the order I just mentioned then, here is a little showcase of images…
High key lighting with a shallow depth of field, really brings out the colour in the iris
Spinning captured (flukely) at a great point where she is creating this great shape.
Shot from directly above with Gill lying on the floor - really soft lighting from one soft box each side
Lots of colour - slightly high-key to bring out hair and top better
Nice blog….Keep up the good work