I swim with Amy at our master's workouts a few times a week. Amy is a dedicated and talented triathlete and she divides her time between swimming, biking and running (when she's not working at her job...). I'm more linear, I'm usually just swimming. One day I asked Amy if I could photograph her as I see her sometimes, soaking wet, right after a tough workout. She agreed.
We met at the pool after the normal work day and she pounded out some yards. Then we headed to my studio. She's quiet. I talk too much. But it worked out for me. This image was made in my Sony a77 camera with an 85mm 2.8 Sony DT lens. I shot at 50 ISO using a Profoto Acute B600 pack and one head bounced into a 72 inch umbrella. The umbrella had a diffusion sock that softened the light. Then the light went through another 3/4 stop diffusion fabric on a 48 by 48 inch Chimera frame before flowing across Amy's face. I used an Elinchrom monolight on the back wall of the studio, which is painted gray. That light was turned almost completely down and projected through a 20 degree grid.
To get the water drops to show I would occasionally stop and spritz her with warm water. An interesting change of pace for most subjects... calls for closing your eyes and holding your breath...
I made corrections to the color file in Lightroom for exposure and contrast but I used Snapseed for my black and white conversion. I like this style of shooting.
I also shot two rolls of 120mm black and white film in a Hasselblad 501 CM with a 150mm lens. The film will be back from the lab tomorrow and I'll make a few scans and see how it all compares. To date, this is my favorite technical rendition of a digital portrait file converted to black and white. I plan to keep working on it.
