Okay, I've admittedly
done this setup before, but not yet with the new camera. And the
new camera does make a difference. The old digital camera had a
tilting / pivoting live preview LCD screen that makes unusual angles
easy. The logistics of positioning the new camera (although
invisible to you) can be
challenging.
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I
like the texture overload in
this setup, and I'm a big fan
of soft light coming down from
above.
My
thinking was the Arie, with
her slim & angular figure,
would be terrific in this
setup. So, I pulled out
the studio cloth, pinned it
up, and positioned the strobe
light & soft box on a boom
arm above.
I like how this
looks.
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This space is
tight. You viewers kind of lose all perspective because the lens
is set wide and because all straight lines & corners are
obscured. But to give you an idea, this space is not much wider
than Arie's knees in this pose. The back stairs wrap around this
little dead space -- they start at the left of the image, and that
wall there is perhaps six or seven feet tall. The stairs take a
jog to the right, going up the wall behind Arie. The stairs take
another jog, coming back towards the camera position. The wall
to the right side of the image is perhaps fourteen feet tall.
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I
also
like the feeling of being tucked
inside a cozy tent.
I
had an idea to try something
different: the walls are
painted white, and the studio
cloth is translucent.
Since the walls are featureless,
you can't really tell that the
cloth is translucent, but if you
look at the back wall, you can
see that the white is bleeding
through.
I
had thought to first hang my
black velvet backgrounds on the
wall before pinning up the
studio cloth. I didn't do
that this time. Maybe
someday.
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But it's difficult to
devise setups for new-to-me models. I don't get a sense of our
chemistry or how the model moves until we've worked together.
That's why I claim that the third sitting with a model is the one
where we get to the good stuff.
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Often
when photographing the figure,
you will come across lighting
that is great for the figure
but not-so-good for the face,
and this lighting is like
that. When you look at
the images on this page,
you'll see that Arie's face is
best lit when she tilts her
face up towards the light
source. Still, there is
plenty of face detail in the
shadow, as in this
image. The new camera is
good at capturing tones, and
there's enough face exposed
for me.
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Of course, if you are
photographing a model's back, you don't really have to worry about the
light on her face.
I don't photograph
model's back often enough. During the sitting, we are talking,
and that typically means eye contact.
Speaking of
improved tonality -- I think this set of images is the first I edited
using my new monitor. I think it's an improvement.
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Arie
is an energetic poser.
She is all over that little
confined space.
We
photographers like models who
move.
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See? Face tilted
up = good light for the face.
I like almost
everything about this picture, except Arie's right knee.
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I
like this picture a lot
because it's so freaky.
Arie's head has totally
disappeared, and the
positioning of her arms is so
unusual.
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This
really is a confined space -- it's
actually much more confined than it
appears in these wide-angle
pictures. But the light is nice,
the studio cloth looks great, and the
directional light on Arie's figure
works well.
But,
as a confined space, there is a limit
to how much one can do here.
Now, I do have ideas of different
things we can do here, and someday,
I'll get to them, but I didn't try any
of these variations at this
time. Remember, I was trying a
shorter sitting (2 hours, versus 3
hours), and I did want to get Arie
into the shower. (Actually, I
had wanted to get Jolie into the
shower, but she had a cold when we
worked together, and I just couldn't
bring myself to get a coughing model
soaking wet).
This
sitting concludes with Hit
The Shower.
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