SA Photoblog

This photoshoot with Katie (pictured left) and Simone (pictured right) was my third attempt toward glamour photography. I used to call it fashion, but then realized that the difference between glamour and fashion: the later is about clothes, whilst the former is about the person wearing the clothes. As my focus is on the models, I find “glamour” to be a more fitting word.

Terminology aside, the shoot took place one sunny afternoon, and the first location we found was in the alley by some sort of a warehouse made out of brick: perfect for the 1930/1950 theme. In our shoot, Simone was portraying a worker at a scone mine (more on this later), with Katie being the wife, so quite a few pictures are portraying them as a couple loving, arguing, punching, kissing…well, fake kissing. It was quite fun to see things from the camera end, and occasionally noticing bystanders looking our way with weird looks. Not all the look were weird though, as there were several guys coming in and out of buildings just to check out the girls.

As Simone had to move her car, we migrated to the front yard of Katie’s apartment and I quickly setup my remote flash, ready to try out some remote flash goodness on my guinea pigs of the day.

This is when I started to like shadowed area on sunny days. Without the strong contrast between the sun and shadowed area, it’s easier to control the exposure, yet there is enough light going around to provide fast shutter at relatively small aperture and ISO.

After my quick test, we then moved to a cafe nearby to do the rest of our shoot at a relatively quiet and relaxing environment. This was when I whipped out my ghetto yet very well-performing homemade softbox (this is what I bought the fabric for) to start my journey becoming a strobist. As I am doing my photographer thing, Katie and Simone were enjoying their baked goods (scone!) and coffee. As a result, I got quite a few funny pictures, and no, I am not showing them to the world. Heh.

Joking aside, it turned out the softbox worked really well.

Some technical description of the softbox: 16″ x 12.5″ cardboard box lid, with a hole cut on the short end to fit the external flash. Internal covered with aluminum foil, and slightly see-through cloth taped on the open-end for diffusion. Judging from Simone (above) and Katie’s picture (below), I’d say it diffused the shadow pretty well for a single softbox setup, and the lighting is pleasant (and you can see how much Katie’s loving her coffee).

Setup.

So somewhere along the shoot Simone and Katie started talking in Russian accent. I have no idea how that happened, but I remember me laughing so hard I almost fell from the bench at some point. To make matters worse, Simone starting making scone jokes (she was eating one), saying how she works so hard everyday at scone mines only to bring back scones that are consumed by Katie in its entirety. The scone joke and the Russian accent lasted till the end of the day, but this is also one of the reasons I think it’s great to bring friends along to a shoot because it help models relax and stay comfortable, and relaxed models are the best models. After all, this was my first shoot with Simone and only the second with Katie. I’d be nervous too if it’s just me shooting a new model for the first time.

To add a bit more variety to the shoot, I moved the girls to the bench and did some shoot there with the softbox, but most importantly, I tried out Nick Tupin’s snoot technique and was surprised with how effective and dramatic an effect it creates. Thanks to Andrea who showed up later to the shoot (I did a shoot with her a couple weeks beforehand), I had her hold the flash with a snoot attached and raised it high and above, left of camera, pointing toward the upper portion of the models.

The stronger shadow is what made pieces taken with this technique so dramatic looking. I was so engrossed in focusing the flash that I forgot to take a setup shot, but the idea is still fairly simple.

After a long day, the married immigrant couple was finally coming together, ready for another day of scone mining…and eating.

Before we ended out shoot for the day, we quickly took several pictures at the lobby of the “hotel”. Very quick setup, just to show that the couple really did stop fighting.

And of course, the pictures show how we enjoyed the 3-hour photoshoot. It was a fun day.

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