Waterfall shoot

Did a short photo session with Mandi, a model I met through Model Mayhem. We went to Twin Falls for the shoot but due to time constraints, tourists, and lots of mosquitos, we didn’t quite have enough time to do a lot of different looks.

I first attempted to do natural light, using California Sunbounce reflectors. Since the sun kept going behind the clouds, I ended up having to improvise. I setup a SunBounce mini on a lightstand, and fired an SB26 with a 1/8 CTO gel into the reflector. I setup another SB26 with a 1/8 CTO gel on the rocks behind and to her left to give a little separation from the background. Didn’t really need to, since there was some sunlight coming in that lit her hair quite nicely.

To get the smooth look of the waterfall, I used a slow shutter speed, somewhere around 1/8th I think. Had to try several times, since my tripod head wasn’t cooperating with me and I had a lot of blurred shots. Think I might switch to a Really Right Stuff ballhead when I can afford it.

The light REALLY started to get good just before we had to leave. The sunlight coming through the trees was sparkling off the water quite nicely. Only had time to fire off a few shots so I’m going to have to try this concept of a model in the water with fabric again someday.

Cool shots by accident

This is from Sunday’s photoshoot with Tiara. Lighting was an AB 800 with a beauty dish gelled with an orange gel and a 1/8 CTO gel. My Canon 5D was custom white balanced through the gel before the gel went on the dish.

I was mostly set on 1/250 @ f8 during the shoot, but at one point I accidentally switched the camera to Bulb mode while continuing to shoot. Bulb mode on the camera keeps the shutter open until you let go of the shutter button. This image was exposed for about 1 second,so the background blurs from the motion of the camera. The reason the model is sharp in spite of the camera movement is because the flash fired right before the shutter closed, freezing the action. It’s kind of a nice effect, and something that I think I’ll experiment with more on future shoots.

Weekend martial arts photoshoot

Did a photoshoot this past Sunday with Tiara, a model from Oahu that I met through makeup artist Kahulani. We were assisted by Quddus, a cinematographer who also acted as our stunt coordinator and weapons expert.

Kat (Kahulani) wanted to do some headshots with Tiara, so initially, that was all I thought we were going to shoot. While they were doing the makeup, however, I learned that Tiara is also a martial artist and in fact was ranked #1 black belt point fighter in the North American region in 2004.

I had always wanted to do a martial arts themed shoot, and luckily I still had my swords at the studio from my last shoot. 🙂

We started off doing simple headshots like this:

1/250 @f8 at ISO 100 Canon 1DmkII 7–200mm L lens

The lighting setup for this was a WL800 in a beauty dish, with a 4×6 Photoflex silver reflector to the right and a California Sunbounce Mini silver below her waist for additional fill. The background was lit with 2 AB800 with silver umbrellas. We also used a fan to add some movement to her hair.

For the next look, Kat changed the makeup to match with the silk kimono robe we had, and we added a sword for Tiara to play with. The lighting is pretty much the same as the headshot, but this time we pulled in a black curtain in the back. We replaced the 2 umbrellas on the lights in the back with 2 small strip softboxes with red gels and turned them to aim back at the model. I was trying to get a red highlight in the back of her hair to separate her from the background. Instead the effect was more subtle, making her hair look red. In hindsight, I think I should have taken off the strip softboxes and used just the reflectors with grids and the red gels to give more of a brighter specular highlight on the hair.

1/250 @f8 at ISO 100 Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm L lens

We then setup a small platform so that we could do some full length shots. We kept the same lighting in the front, but took off the red gels from the lights behind her. I also replaced the beauty dish with a medium softbox and grid.

1/250 @f8 at ISO 100 Canon 1DmkII 28-70mm L lens

Tiara’s skill in martial arts is amazing. She also has this great energy which really helps when you try to nail shots like this:

1/250 @f8 at ISO 100 Canon 1DmkII 28-70mm L lens

We added an AB800 with a 7″ reflector and 30 degree grid with a 1/8 CTO and mounted it on a C-stand above her to put some additional highlights in her hair. Since we were going to have her jump, we raised all the lights so that their height would match Tiara’s position in the air ( and she can jump pretty high).

After a couple of practice jumps, we caught one of my favorite shots of the day:

1/250 @f8 at ISO 100 Canon 1DmkII 28-70mm L lens

All in all, it was a great shoot. I went in thinking we were just going to do some simple headshots, and we ended up with so much more.

A very busy weekend

This past weekend I did a joint shoot with Chaz from After6Media.com and models Tasha Woodfall and Karin Mie from Honolulu. Makeup was provided by Jessica Waite and Leah Yniguez. It was a two-day shoot, including studio work, sunset at the beach, and shooting at the warehouse. Extremely exhausting, but a lot of fun, and made some new friends in the process.

Karin is a Japanese Brazilian model that I’ve wanted to collaborate with for a while, ever since I met her on Model Mayhem. She was very fun to work with.

One of the first shots I wanted to do with her was a headshot, as I had not seen any headshots on her portfolio at all. Jessica did some excellent work with Karin’s makeup and hair, which made my job much easier.

This headshot was done with a WL1600 in a medium softbox with a 4×6 silver Photoflex reflector for fill. Her hairlight is an SB26 with a grid.

The lighting for this shot is an AB800 in a medium softbox with a grid for her main light and an AB800 in a small strip softbox with a grid behind her for an edge light.

We went to the Cove to try to get a sunset shot. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate, so we had to improvise. This headshot was one of the first shots I took of Tasha at the Cove while we were waiting and hoping for the clouds to pass.

We never did get a good sunset, so we tried a different approach. This is lit with an AB800 and a beauty dish.

More to come.

Model shoot with Mokihana + behind the scenes

Canon 1D MkII 1/250 f8 ISO100 24-70mm L at 25mm

Amazingly, I found out there’s actually people who read this blog?!?! You people have WAY too much time on your hands. 😉

But thank you, I do appreciate the feedback. I’ve been mostly writing this for reference for myself when I need to remember how a particular shot was done. I’ll try to make it interesting for you. No guarantees though.

This past Sunday I had a shoot on Oahu with Mokihana, whom I met through Model Mayhem.
We decided on two looks – a casual outfit and a “Tomb Raider” style look.

Our prop department:
2 Glock 17s (airsoft versions imported from Japan)
2 Beretta M92s (airsoft versions imported from Japan)
*I’m a lot of fun going through customs 😉
Leg holsters
Shoulder holsters
Gloves

Strobist lighting gear:
2 SB 26 strobes
3 Pocket Wizards
2 Bogen lightstands
2 Westcott shoot thru umbrellas
1 Westcott silver umbrella
1 Photoflex Q39 Softbox
1 Shashin Denki Kogyo (SD) Softbox
Ball Bungees
Roscoe gel samples
1 grid – homemade from black straws, Frosted Flakes cereal box and a lotta gaffer’s tape (which came in handy later on during the shoot)

Amazingly, all that lighting gear fits into this Slik tripod case:

Back light with CTO gel:

The two softboxes side by side. Photoflex is on the right.
The larger SD softbox folds like an umbrella. Picked it up in Japan.

Because the SD softbox mounts on the lightstand like an umbrella, the SB26 sits too high if seated in the coldshoe mount. Ball bungies to the rescue!

Mounting the SD softbox:

For the Tomb Raider image at our first location, we wanted to give the impression that she was in a cave. The rock wall nearby(seen in the shot with the two side by side softboxes) served as a backdrop . Had Mokihana position herself about 15-20 feet away from the wall, and setup the camera so that we weren’t shooting directly into the wall.

We took a shot on program which gave us 1/100 at f8 ISO 100.
Set the shutter speed to 1/250, the max sync speed of our Canon 1DmkII, which dropped the ambient light down.
Setup the SD softbox and SB-26 1/2 power with 1/4 CTO gel about 8-10 feet in front of the model.

The Photoflex softbox went behind her, SB-26 1/2 power with a CTO gel.

Results:

Canon 1D MkII 1/250 f8 ISO100 70-200mm L (non-IS) at 95mm

For the casual look, Mokihana had a red outfit, so I wanted to find some greenery to work with. Walking through the parking structure near this wall, I found a narrow strip of foliage with some light coming from overhead.

The sky was pretty overcast, and we probably could have gotten by with a reflector to get some standard portraits, but I wanted to go for a sunset style shot (in photographer-speak, that means “I forgot to pack my reflectors”)

This is with the same lighting as the Tomb Raider style shots, with the SD softbox as the main light, SB26 1/2 power with 1/4 CTO. The only difference was the back light. I first tried it with the Photoflex softbox and SB26 1/2 power with CTO but wasn’t getting the highlight we wanted.

Took off the softbox, and the highlights were good, but now the rear flash was flaring into the camera (the rear flash was set pretty close to the model – just out of the frame to the right). So to remedy that, I put the black straw cereal box grid on that light and we ended up with this:

Canon 1D MkII 1/250 f2.8 ISO400 70-200mm L (non-IS) at 140mm

That’s actually a little more overexposed than I usually like, but both the model and I agreed that we liked this look better.

I’m still going over the other shots that we took that day. More to come later.

If you found any of this interesting at all, let me know by leaving a comment, and I’ll try to remember to do more behind the scenes stuff on my next shoot.

Sunday shoot with Christine

Christine is an up-and-coming young actress I met through ModelMayhem. We did a short photo session this past Sunday to help her add some new shots to her portfolio. I also got to experiment with my Lastolite Trigrip reflectors.

This was one of the first shots we did at her hotel. It was early morning, with the sun just coming up over the West Maui mountains. I noticed the sunlight glinting off the palm trees lining the driveway and thought it might look cool as a background. I positioned Christine about 10 feet in front of the trees, with her back to the sun to highlight her hair. I then used a Lastolite Trigrip silver reflector to bounce some light into her eyes. I shot it with a Canon 1D MkII and a 70-200 lens to throw the trees out of focus.

Christine’s mom drove us down to DT Flemings beach for our next location. For this shot, I had her mom hold the reflector just out of the edge of the frame to the right, silver side again, to throw some fill light into Christine’s eyes. I switched my lens to a 28-70 and put on a polarizing filter to darken the sky.

As we were wrapping up, Christine came up with this idea. Since the sun was pretty high up and the light was getting a bit harsh, I had her mom hold a Lastolite Trigrip 1-stop diffuser just above her head to soften the light for this final portrait.

We had to keep the shoot pretty short, as Christine had another session planned with another photographer for that afternoon, but we got some pretty good images out of the shoot.

More from Tokyo shoot

Because of airline restrictions, I wasn’t able to bring a lot of lighting gear to Japan, and I wasn’t sure what would be available to us in terms of lighting at the studio we rented until I got there. So I brought along my Strobist lighting kit consisting of 2 Canon 550ex strobes, a couple of umbrellas, stands, and my RadioPopper triggers (I really love those!)

To emulate a ringflash look, I setup one lightstand with two strobes firing through shoot-thru umbrellas, mounted one above the other in a clamshell style lighting setup. Both strobes were set on manual at about 1/8th power, and I positioned my camera between the two umbrellas. Image shot with a Canon 5D and 85mm 1.8 lens.

This one was done with the two shoot-thru umbrellas again, this time each strobe was mounted on its own stand. The lights were setup on either side of the model, slightly behind her, and aimed directly at each other. This served to both light the background and rim light the model.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, the model IS wearing clothes. It’s the way she is posed that hides the bikini she is wearing. So it’s kind of an implied nude, without being an implied nude.

More shots from Dominika’s shoot

Some more images from my shot with Dominika on Sunday. Ding Kings is such a cool place for a photo shoot!

Images from Sunday photoshoot

Yesterday’s photoshoot was with Dominika, an actress/writer from L.A. who has been in many TV shows and films, including the forthcoming “The Vanquisher”.

We first started out on a beach in Paia, where I got to experiment with my RadioPoppers for the first time since I received them. In the past I had been having hit or miss problems with Canon’s infrared wireless flash system especially in outdoor settings. With the Radio Poppers installed on my ST-E2 transmitter and 580ex flash, I could just concentrate on photographing Dominika.

We next went to Ding Kings – one of the most amazing locations I have seen on Maui. It is a surfboard repair shop housed in an old warehouse in Kahului. Check out this blog for a tour of the place.

They were gracious enough to allow us to shoot at this location and we were able to get some really great shots. It was such an interesting place to shoot. Everytime we turned around, we found another cool thing to shoot.

This was one of the most interesting things to shoot there. The people at Ding Kings built this set of chairs and table that is HUGE. Really neat stuff to shoot!

At this location I chose to use 2 lights. The main was an Alien Bees AB800 with a beauty dish triggered with a Pocket Wizard. To give Dominika some light to pop her out of the background, I used a Nikon SB26 on a lightstand behind her. I also occasionally used a silver Lastolite Trigrip reflector to add a touch of fill.

Thank you Dominika for being such a great subject to photograph, and special thanks to Ding Kings for allowing us to shoot on their property today.

Images from last month’s shoot on Oahu

Had the chance to work with two models on Oahu last month – Alia and Kristen. I met both of them through their portfolios on ModelMayhem.com. I also got to work with two excellent makeup artists – Toni and Kecia. They were all excellent to work with and very patient with me as I am still getting used to working in a studio.

For these two shoots, I was able to rent some studio time at Ohana West Studio in Honolulu.
Very convenient location – right across the street from Honolulu Community College.

These two images are of Alia. We wanted to add some color to her portfolio, so we used a kimono-style silk robe and a red samurai sword (found both of these in Akihabara). We had a WL 1600 in a medium softbox as her main light, and an AB800 in a strip box behind her to separate her from the background.

We used a fan to add movement to some of the shots. Ohana West Studios has this big industrial fan that only has 2 speeds – hurricane mode and holycrapthisisfast. The fan was so strong it kept moving the softbox. But it made for some great shots.

This is Kristen. She wanted to try out a cupcake theme, and this was one of my favorite images of the day.

Even though she did not have as much experience as some other models I’ve worked with in the past, she was amazing to work with. This was one of the last images of the day that we shot, and she really made it work.

For this image, We used pretty much the same lighting as Alia’s kimono shoot with only two changes. First we changed the background to a white seamless. We then put a grid on the medium softbox to keep most of the main light from spilling onto the white seamless paper, and cause the main light on her to gradually falloff. This let us change the background color to medium gray, and also draw more attention to the model’s face.

Thanks to two wonderful (and patient) models, and two excellent makeup artists, I gained some more experience with working in a studio environment and was able to add some variety to my portfolio.