By Popular Demand. Behind the scenes stuff. Or, "Does this lens make the photographer look fat?"

Since I posted photos from my shoot yesterday I've gotten dozens of requests for "behind the scenes" shots that would show how everything was positioned.  Fortunately my friend, Amy Smith, was assisting me on the shoot and she kindly provided some behind the scenes coverage.  I hope these will be help you more accurately visualize how I was placing the lights and how it affected the overall look of the shots.  

The first one is a studio shot done with my favorite light source, the big-ass 6 foot by 6 foot scrim.  I'm using a Photoflex frame and one layer of white diffusion. As you can tell I like to use the light source as close in as I can.  I have black panels on the shadow side to make sure that too much bounce from the studio's white walls doesn't fill in too much and degrade the contrast I wanted.  These are quick edits and no,  I haven't edited out fly-away hair, etc.  If the images were heading straight from here to a client we'd  retouch them first.  

While strobes might yield more depth of field and add a bit of sharpness I think you would agree that these images look more cinematic and life like.  Afterall, we chase fast lenses in all the reviews and forums,  doesn't it make sense to use them close to wide open from time to time?  Isn't that why we spent the extra money?

Yes.  You can do this with a small flash.  Really easily.  Almost as easily as just tossing up three small light panels and taking a look through your camera's finder....... Funny.  I worked at color correction and did a custom white balance.  Amy was shooting jpeg and seemed to hit the right WB everytime.  Live and learn.

I call this, "lights on a stick".  Love the wooden tripod.  Goes so well with the tennis shoes.

It's cruel to use small lights without even the tiniest bit of diffusion.  I didn't want anyone to report me for "cruelty to models" so I added some Rosco Luxe to each panel.  I think it's endearing that the little panels I use snap together to make bigger panels.  I have two more coming this week........

I'm no fashion photographer.  That's for sure.  But I kept hearing about clamshell lighting and I thought I'd try my own variation with my LED lights.  I tossed a couple of 500's on the floor, covered with some half stop diffusion and I put the 1000 through a two stop Westcott Fast Flags diffuser and blazed away, screaming, "Pout for me baby and I'll make you a star!"  Or something from "Zoolander".  I can hardly remember......

And guess what?  I had enough light to shoot hand held.  Miracles happen every day.......

That's it for the behind the scenes stuff.  Is this something you want?  Should I post more set up shots?  Just curious.  I'm not really comfortable flashing gang signs, participating is extreme snowboarding and saying "bro" and all the frenetic stuff we see on other blogs.  But I am happy to show you where we put the lights.......

Few things beat a perfect Austin Sunday afternoon spent taking photos.

It was one of those perfect Austin afternoons.  The temperature was in the 70's.  It was dry.  The sun was shining in a clear blue sky and there was a gentle breeze with just enough energy to push around some blond hair.  Jana (above) and Amy came over to the studio so we could experiment with some lighting ideas.  Late in the afternoon we posed Jana in front of the stone wall that runs a couple hundred feet across the front of my property.  The open shade was great but we added some fill from an electro-luminescent source and it filled in the gaps perfectly.  Others may argue about non-continuous spectra and other supposed inconsistencies but I think Jana's flesh tones are right on the money.

Earlier in the afternoon we all headed to the Rollingwood Swim Club to take a few shots of Jana in her superb wedding dress. We were working under a covered area and use a few tiny portable LED light panels for some fill light.  The lens was a 100 and the working aperture was 2.8.  On our way into the pool a very nice young man held the gate open for our little entourage.  It was Aaron Piersol, the world record holder in the 100 and 200 meter backstroke events.  He's also got a handful of Olympic gold medals.  Amy and Jana both approved.

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing with big scrims, little lights and bank buildings.  I don't expect anyone to fall off their seats at the photos above.  They were more of an exercise.  A practice.  I enjoyed the process of learning more about some new lights and I always enjoy hanging out with Amy and Jana.

We capped the afternoon by catching the post sunset at the bank building around the corner.  Three little LED panels on a light stand over to the left of the frame brought up the illumination on Jana while  Amy held a fourth panel about fifteen feet to the right to get just the right accent light on  Jana's hair and shoulder.  New lighting always makes for a bit of excitement but it doesn't do any better than any other light source when they are used correctly.

Hope your week gets off to a good start.  Remember, it's all just one big experiment and you'll never know what works and what doesn't unless you test your hypotheses.