Justine Lets Her Hair Down, July, 2003

Justine has an interesting hair style -- she actually has long dread locks. When she piles them up on top of her head, her hair is neat, but when she lets her hair down, her hair is wild, like Medusa.

Okay, this third lighting set up is a hybrid of the first two -- simply, I replaced the light to my left with the softbox, but the spot light & the hair light from the second set up is still there. And, of course, Justine has set her hair free.

In the shadowy lighting set up from the previous page, Justine was sitting, and the hair light lined up with the back of her head. Here, she is standing, but I decided not to raise the hair light much -- it is now behind her more at chest level. It is still highlighting her hair (since her hair is long), plus it contributes other subtle contributions, like the line of light on her right arm.

For a typical sitting, I plan to expose 10 rolls of film (10 exposure on each roll). There are two reasons for this: 1) I have a Jobo film processor, and its maximum capacity is 10 rolls, 2) I'm typically pretty tired after 10 rolls, and I find that 10 rolls give me ample opportunity to express a few ideas, and 3) 100 exposures is a lot for me to process in the darkroom. For planning purposes, I tell models that it will take about 3 hours to make all these exposures, and it usually does. (At the 3 hour mark, we either stop or quickly finish up if we aren't finished already; and if the sitting takes less that 3 hours, I still pay the model for the full 3 hours).
Justine & I were done in a little over 2 hours -- things were simply easy. She was easy to talk with and easy to direct. She was patient with me during those moments when I was changing film or adjusting lights or calculating exposure (she was happy to pet my dog during the longer breaks). I was still exhausted after the sitting, but it was lots of fun while it lasted. Because of this, I'm sure to ask Justine to work with me again.

As I've said previously, Justine has many of the physical attributes I like to photograph: she has clear skin, a femininely defined figure, wise eyes, and charisma. And I don't think I've tapped Justine's range of expression -- she is fearless when it comes to posing. We'll have to devise some setups that are more worthy of her talents.

What do you think?