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i have lights and i’m not afraid to use them. i am, however, hesitant to use them with paying clients in ways i’ve never tried before. enter jaclyn, my friend who was gracious enough to lend me her time and face.
jaclyn, her husband nate, and their mini-human mykenzie came over for dinner one night and we shoveled some homemade pizza and ice cream down our throats before pulling out the camera gear and makeup. earlier that day i had set up my studio strobes and a seamless white background in what is usually the porch, but that night (and other nights) served as the impromptu studio space.
i’ve been wanting to give tethered shooting a try, meaning when you press the shutter button the photo goes directly to a computer so you can see it on the big screen. i ended up really liking it because it’s much easier to see how the shots are looking on a computer screen versus the three inch screen on the back of the camera. it was especially helpful when trying to make fine adjustments to the lighting setup. anywho, i digress.
my goal was to get a few good head shots that were cropped really tightly. i wanted to to get variety from the lighting, not the posing. jaclyn made one face, which we affectionately referred to as ‘the face’. it was a good face. the one shot below where she’s using a different face was really a shot i grabbed while she was laughing at one of my many extremely clever jokes.
i backlit this shot with two full power strobes, one on either side and both angled toward the back of her head. shooting into the strobes gave me the lens flare that you see. there was hardly no post production work on this shot, it’s pretty much right out of camera.
this next shot was the one that i thought was going to be my favorite. i spent the most editing time on this one, only to realize that my actual favorite of the night was a different shot that only required 45 minutes of editing. go figure. note ‘the face’ in action for this shot and the one above, just different lighting. this shot had a full power strobe directly behind her head, bare bulb. the other strobe was at about a 45 in front of her with a shoot-through umbrella.
and lastly, my pick of the night:
i like it because it’s clean, bright, and the pose is natural. i was making her be serious most of the time, but maybe i should’ve let her smile more. when ya got a good thing, you should use it, right?
i’m happy with the results and i’m grateful to jaclyn for sitting through all the pictures. i’m even more thankful to nate for hanging around with mykenzie while we shot. i’m even more thankful to tara for making ice cream.
