More studio lighting work with Uilani

Had the chance to work with model Uilani again in Maui a few weekends ago before I flew up to Japan.

Makeup and hair was done by Kahulani.  We were assisted by Ronald and Quddus.

For lighting, we used basically the same setup as last time, with two AB 800s lighting the white wall and an AB800 in a large softbox for the main light.  To even out the lighting on the background, we used a white shoot thru umbrella modifier on both rear lights.

Uilani had a lot of different outfits and props to use this time, courtesy of Isle Empress.

except for the guns, of course. 😉

One thing that was a little different this time was that we ended up having a group shoot, since pretty much everyone present had a camera and we had enough Pocket Wizards to go around.  A lot of my frames ended up dark because the poor Alien Bees were getting a workout. 😉  But the  great thing was that everyone had the chance to get some shots and Uilani had a lot of images to select from.

Shooting with the Photoflex 5 ft Octodome

Finally got a chance to use my new 5 ft Photoflex Octodome on some photoshoots.  This studio shoot was done with 3 models – Lia, Heidi and Uilani.  Makeup and hair was done by Kahulani and we were again assisted by Quddus Ajimine.

I can literally stand directly in front of this softbox when shooting the model. It’s gianormous. And this is only their medium sized Octodome. They come in small 3′, medium 5′ and freaking large 7′ (you know, in case you ever need to light Godzilla someday).

I really like the way the light from the AB800 in the Octodome wraps around Lia. Silver Photoflex Litepanel for fill.

We were kinda pressed for time that day, since we had 3 models doing headshots in studio at the same time, so I didn’t get to do much variation in the lighting.  I did try a slightly different setup for Heidi below, where I switched to the beauty dish.  I also had Quddus hold up a Lastolite Trigrip Diffuser in front of the beauty dish to further soften the light on Heidi.

 For Uilani, I switched back to the Octodome and also added a silver litepanel for fill, another AB800 with a strip softbox for the back light and a round silver reflector on the floor in front of her.

 What’s really nice about the Octodome is that because of the size, it’s really good for lighting groups.

For this last shot of the three models together, the Octodome is boomed above center , with 2 AB800s with red and blue gels behind for rim lighting.

Boudoir Photoshoot with Kat and Sasha

 (Cool phone prop courtesy of Kahulani)

About a week ago I had the chance to team up with makeup artist Kahulani and model Sasha C for a boudoir photoshoot. We were assisted once again by Quddus Ajimine.

Since this was a boudoir shoot, the set was a little more elaborate than usual. However, I wanted to keep it flexible and built only what would be seen in the camera frame.  It was designed so that we could shoot it two ways and get two different looks.

The bed is an air mattress from Sports Authority and is covered with satin sheets found at Ross Dress For Less.  I rigged a semi open bed canopy using wooden poles mounted on 4 C-stands and draped with lengths of tulle from a local fabric store.  Because the top poles would never be seen in the photos, I used clothespins to attach the fabric to the poles.  Two freestanding folding closet doors and some artificial plants were used to hide the rear C-stands.  Behind the bed is a white wall and to the right of the bed is a black curtain.  This way we could shoot through the canopy and get one look with a blue background, then shoot from the left without seeing the fabric and get a black background.

For lighting the set we used a total of 5 AB800s.

Setup #1 (through the canopy)
Main light – AB800 with beauty dish.
Fill – silver 4×6 Photoflex Lightpanel reflector.
Rear Rim Lights – 2 AB800s with small gridded strip softboxes and 1/4 CTO gels.
Background – AB800 with background shovel reflector and a blue gel to light up the white wall behind the bed.

Setup #2 (shooting from the left of the bed)

Main light -AB800 with a small softbox.
Rear lights – the Main light and one of the rim lights from Setup #1 became our rim lights for Setup #2

 

To end the session, we switched to shooting from above.  We took down the 2 front C-stands and pole and wrapped the tulle around our model.

For lighting we lit the bed with two lights – the softbox on the left and the beauty dish on the right.  These were lowered until the light skimmed across the surface of the bed.  We then took one of the rear AB800s and replaced the strip softbox with a 7″ reflector and a 20 degree grid and aimed it at the mask of the model’s face.

 

Wish we had more time to work with this model as we were just starting to get some really cool shots by the end of the session.

Studio shoot with Mandi and Kat

My second photoshoot this past Saturday was in studio with model Mandi Reanne and makeup artist Kahulani. We were assisted by fellow photographer Allan from Icandy Maui.

I had previously worked with Mandi on a waterfall shoot last year and it was great to have the chance to work with her again.

For this shoot we concentrated mainly on headshots with different makeup looks.
To make the setups go quickly, we had four lights setup in position, turning them off and on as we needed:

Main light -1 Alien Bees AB800 in a beauty dish mounted on a C-stand above and slightly right of center.

Rim lights – 2 AB800s in small strip softboxes behind the model at 45 degrees to either side

Background light – 1 AB800 with a background shovel reflector.

Reflector – silver California Sunbounce micro mini on small light stand in front.

Control of each light was with an Alien Bees LG4X Four-Channel Wired Remote Control.  This made it easier than running around to each light and adjusting the power on each one.

The big white panels in the photo above are styrofoam sheets from Home Depot joined together with gaffer’s tape to form V-panels.  Initially we set them up intending to bounce light into them, but we ended up mainly using them to help flag the rimlights from flaring into the camera.

The first setup used just the beauty dish light.  We turned off the other three lights and moved in a black curtain behind the model. We hung black duvetyne fabric from a C-stand and positioned it very close to Mandi, just out of the frame to help deepen the shadows.

Canon 5D iso100 70-200mm 2.8L lens 1/160 @ f11

For the second setup, we turned on the two rimlights.  When we were testing, Allan came up with the idea to gel the lights.  We looked through our gels and found 2 Roscoe #15 Deep Straw gels.  Allan and I attached them to the strip softboxes and did some more tweaking of the lights.  To help intensify the effect, we took out the main baffle of each strip box and left just the inner baffle in place.

The lighting and gels worked really well with Kat’s makeup work for the second look.

 Canon 5D iso100 70-200mm 2.8L lens 1/160 @ f11

Something I found out about my 5D when we were testing the lights – even though the 5D’s flash sync speed is rated at 1/200,  the actual sync speed limit is 1/160.

While shooting this second look, we accidentally stumbled upon another lighting setup when I adjusted the position of the main light. It unplugged itself when I moved it and on the next image, only the rear rimlights fired.  Because of Allan’s gels on the rimlights, the silhouette effect was pretty cool.

Canon 5D iso100 70-200mm 2.8L lens 1/160 @ f11

We played around with this setup, doing both silhouettes and fully lit headshots until we got what we wanted.

For our last lighting setup, we removed the black curtain, turned on all 4 AB800s, took off the gels from the rimlights and replaced the baffles.

 Canon 5D iso100 70-200mm 2.8L lens 1/160 @ f11

We put the black duvetyne next to her for slight shadow on her cheek and brought in the silver Sunbounce reflector in very low to soften the chin shadow.

We wrapped pretty late on this shoot, I think around 8 or 9 pm, but we got some great shots out of it.

Studio shoot in Tokyo

Currently going over the results of two photoshoots I had scheduled in Japan this month.  The first one was in a studio with actress/model Maya Murofushi.

Sweet Studio is located in Edogawabashi, a few stops on the Yurakucho line from Ikebukuro.  It’s a pretty nice small studio to work out of, with a variety of looks.  The walls were all white, however, and posed a bit of a challenge lighting-wise.

One of the walls had a partial brick texture on it, which I wanted to enhance by positioning flashes to fire along the wall.  I added a blue gel to 2 SB26 flashes and arranged them so that the light would scatter along the wall.  I did a couple of tests, but found I wasn’t getting the coverage I wanted.  So I moved them out away from the wall and aimed them more directly to the wall.

The main light was an SB 26 with a white shoot thru umbrella and a 1/4 CTO gel. I also added another SB26 with a 1/4 CTO gel behind the models to create a separation light.

Because the studio was very small, I could not setup the model’s position far enough from the wall to prevent the main light from contaminating the background.  So I ended up having to lower the background brightness in post.

Did some shots without the gels as well. The lighting for this was an SB26 with a Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe Softbox to camera right.

The studio had some basic lighting equipment included with the rental, so we utilized it for our final setups since we were running short on time.

This is with a hotlight in a 6 or 7 foot giant Rifa Softbox to camera left.  I had JAB use a California Sunbounce Micro Mini as a fan to add some motion to Maya’s hair.

More from Saturday’s photoshoot

Finally cleared up my video editing backlog and had more time to work on images from this past Saturday’s photoshoot with wolfpup.

I put this image in my previous post, but wanted to play around a bit with the cropping in Lightroom. I kinda like this angle, as it fills the frame more with the model and gives it a little more drama. The only thing is that it cuts off more of the rock formation to the right. Haven’t decided which one to use yet. Any suggestions?

Because I didn’t have my Vagabond battery pack available, I wasn’t able to use my studio strobes to overpower the sun like I had originally intended. I experimented in this shot using 2 SB26s on 1/2 power each. One is connected to a hotshoe adapter on the lightstand. The second one is ball-bungied right below it.

For this shot, I only had about 15 minutes to setup the set. This was a spur of the moment idea to try to recreate a bedroom set in the middle of a studio.

I covered a table with a white satin sheet and had the model climb onto that. I setup a c-stand next to the table and hung a couple of white drapes from the c-stand. Finally, in the background I put up a couple of folding wooden doors to simulate a closet.

For lighting I used an AB800 in a large softbox just out of the frame to camera right. I setup another AB800 barebulb behind the drapes – this was to simulate the sun coming in through the window.

After I took a test shot, I noticed the background was too dark, so I added another AB800 with a small softbox behind her. This lit up the background and also gave her an edge light.

I shot with a 70-200mm lens at about 135mm, wide open at f2.8. This blurs the background and helps hide the makeshift setup.

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.

More from 1st Japan shoot

Whew! It took over a month, but I was finally able to go through the images we took in Japan this past December and do the post production work on them. I really need to streamline my RAW workflow in Adobe Lightroom so that I can get these done faster next time.

This was the studio that we rented in Japan. A bit small, but very close to the train station so it was pretty easy to find.

Since this was my first time to this studio, I was not sure what to expect as far as lighting equipment that was available. Due to luggage weight restrictions on the airlines, I was not able to bring along my studio lighting equipment from Hawaii. When I looked at the studio’s website, I saw these two softbox lights which I assumed were strobes. I figured I could get by with two strobes in softboxes.

When I arrived at the studio I found out that these were “hot lights” – continuous light sources, not strobes as I had initially thought (I REALLY need to learn to read more kanji). This was a bit of a challenge for me, as I was used to using “hot lights” for video work, not photography.

Luckily I had brought along my Strobist kit – 2 small lightstands, 2 umbrellas and a pair of Nikon SB24 flashes. I ended up using the hot lights to light the model and matched it with the SB24s with umbrellas to light and hide the wrinkles in the white backdrop.

While the makeup artist and hair stylist were working on Stephanie’s second look for the shoot, I tried to think of something I could do with just my Strobist kit. I knew that I wanted to color the background to help the model’s outfit stand out more. I put an SB-24 with an umbrella on a stand to my right to illuminate the model. I then stuck a Gary Fong Whaletail with a blue gel onto my other SB-24 and stuck it behind the cushions in the corner behind the model to get this:

Overall, it was a great learning experience, and we got some really cool images out of this shoot. To see more images from this shoot, visit www.mizomi.com