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| Here's my bike that I use to cruise around Old-Town Charleston! |
I got to play around in the studio this week and this is only just the start. I have several more fun things lined up for the rest of the week. I think I got a good start though...
On Saturday, Andy and I got an old Corvette in the studio and did an auto-portrait. One of CCforP's students wanted to have their Holiday card done with their car and kids, so we made it happen.
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| Here's Andy fiddling with the deep octabox |
We used two large Elinchrom softboxes and lights to illuminate the body of the car evenly and softly. We then used an Elinchrom light and deep octa to light the kids. To light the undercarriage, we used a Nikon SB-900 Flash.
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| Andy is very good with kids and they seem to be drawn to him |
With the help of the parents and Andy's charm with kids, we got them into place. They were having a ball and bouncing up and down. I figured that dad didn't let them do that very often with his car... LOL!
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| Here's the car before we added the kids |
Obviously, photographing reflective surfaces can pose many challenges. For one, you see everything! Our studio doesn't have a giant white scrim to prevent ceiling reflection (yet).
Many studios that specialize in this type of automotive photography will have a giant white parachute-type material hanging above the car. It's often suspended by a big light-weight square frame or lattice work. So, instead of reflecting "building structure" it reflects just smooth white surface. Having this type of scrim also gives you the option of lighting from above. Yup, you can use it as a giant diffuser to pop some more light in the shadows.
But, for now, we worked with we had. I think it looks pretty darn good. The large octa-banks really do a great job of spreading the light evenly across the subject (car).
After the car session, I did some portraits for a professor at the Citadel, Jennifer Bernstein. She's a literary teacher, who's starting her own business. That's very courageous of her and I understand what she's going through. It's a tough time, when you are starting something "unknown". So to show my support, we got together to explore a little more about her in front of the camera.
The pictures that I'm about share with you have not been edited or doctored. They were captured as NEF's and then loaded into Lightroom and exported as low-resolution JPEG's to post to the blog. I just wanted you to see how great these lights really are!
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| Simple light set-up with Elinchrom's giant octabox in the front to light her, a deep octa over her back shoulder and another giant octa to light the back wall |
She confided to me that she HATED being in front of the camera. However, she didn't have to tell me that because her body language said everything. She was so nervous that her shoulders were touching her earlobes. Her lips were quivery and her arms were as straight as boards on either side of her body. I knew she would eventually open up, but it was going to take some coaxing.
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| Shot with a Nikon D3s and Nikkon 24-70mm Lens |
I have a systematic approach to sessions like this. When my subject is uneasy, I try to talk to them and do some role playing. When you allow your subjects to play a "strong character role" their bodies change. It allows them to feel like they are aren't being judged for themselves, but for the role they are playing. Sound strange? It works for me.
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| The giant octabox by Elinchrom Rotalux is amazing with glasses. You can't see the light reflection! |
My favorite portrait of the day was near the end of the shoot, which is normally the case. She was really at ease with me and was starting to have some real fun. I feel like this last portrait really demonstrates her fun side and love for literature.
