strike a pose

so here are the photos from my second studio lighting session. not that you'll notice, but i was on a 24 hour fast during this shoot. i survived (obviously) and the shots turned out nicely.

we got to practice moving and changing lights. i found quickly that i liked soft light a lot better than hard light and that positioning the light at different angles for the same shot is a good idea.
this was probably the first studio photo i've taken that i actually enjoy looking at. the main reason is that she was actually laughing at being fanned and the true emotion of the moment was there. ie, it doesn't look forced or posed.
here's another one. when i took my photos, i tried to wait until someone said or did something that affected the model's expressions.
contrast the above photos to these ones. you'll notice that this model didn't have the same external stimuli that brought out the natural smiles or expressions. also these shots were in the butterfly position, whereas emma (above) was lit with rembrandt-positioned light. both were done with softboxes.

you'll notice i took shots with the models squatting. it was the only convenient way to get a head-to-toe shot without having to stand far away. note to self: get a wider lens.
i found i got sick of the lighting position and quality really fast. for this last model, i placed the light to the side of the model and shot using hatchet lighting. i like the first one better, but both produced the dramatic, comicbook effect.

and that will be all the photos from my course since this class ends this saturday and we'll be critiquing our shots. hope you had as much fun looking at them as i had taking them.

studio strobes

sorry for the long period of silence. without going into too much detail, let's get on with the photos, shall we?

a couple weeks ago we had a chance to use the strobe lights in the studio. again, we hired some models and practiced taking photos. this model looked very out of place but the soft rembrandt lighting made for good shots.
this was probably the more fun shot we did. or at least i had a lot of fun with it. the flash is directly behind her head, giving her hair that glow. in front of her were 2 white panels which reflected the light back onto her face. i had her put on sunglasses to see what it looked like. some people said it was too much, but i thought it gave depth to the lenses.

ok, that's all for this post. hrm, just noticed the shirt on the second model has a lot of folds along the side. gotta keep my eye out for those small details.

model shoot

so here are the photos of the model we hired for class. her name is courtney - my sister says she looks like kirsten dunst. anyway, out of the 140 photos i took of her, these made the top of the list.

this is my favourite shot (click to see the larger version)
i was very impressed with this photo after cropping away the concrete frame which she was standing in. the black background is actually a dark stairwell.
all of these photos were taken with my 50mm lens. it really showed its strength while doing these portrait shots. a reflector was also used to boost the lighting conditions and reduce shadows.