Last weekend I had the pleasure of doing totally different shoots with 2 very special people. I will go into a little about both of these below:
The first shoot was at a place I had in mind for a while now and have been waiting for the right time to shoot there. I put the call out for a model to work with me and the lovely Kimberley raised her hand and off we set to an abandoned train tunnel in the Dularcha national park at Mooloolah in Queensland. The shoot was planned to be shot half in the tunnel and half at the entrance of the tunnel and after I setup the lighting in the tunnel I began to shoot. Well 2 shots in and the wireless trigger on my strobe decided to play up and as a consequence I had no back lighting, or rim light, for my subject. So I made do with the LED light I was using for my front light or Key light and took a few shots inside the tunnel. We then move out to entrance of the tunnel and with the use of just the LED for key lighting we used the sun as rim lighting to get some really nice shots. We also used the surrounding areas to get some interest in the shots by using tree roots and the loads of nice green moss that was every where. We shot for about an hour and Kimberly if very happy with here shots and she was a great model and her Mum Maria was kind enough to be my assistant. Below is a few of the finished shots from the shoot.
I think she looks like a movie star :)
The next shoot for the day took place at the Mooloolaba Spit with a Mum and Dad to be. Mum was an awesome sport and brought 3 outfits with her and we shot with all 3. We positioned ourselves on the grassed area to shoot in some natural light and also to balance the ambient light with some off camera fill flash. We tried a few different outfits and locations in this area before moving down to the beach. The sun was still relatively high so I thought I would shoot some silhouettes of Mum and Dad as sometimes they can look really good and tell a story. We were really fortunate to have a large area of beach to ourselves and as the sun went down, out came the flash. Some really nice images can me created when you balance the ambient lit and flash and some images can actually look like they have been layered in Photoshop as the subject seems to pop out of the background. This look is call separation and is done lighting the subject correctly and not in Photoshop. It also depends on what type of lens you are shooting with some of the lower prices variable aperture lenses not creating the desired effect. I always say that if you are going to buy a lens, get a fixed aperture lens so it stays constant through out the focal range. This way you can get a nice shallow depth of field and get some good separation. We shot well into the afternoon and I think we got some great images and the Mum to be was delighted with the outcome.
Well thanks for reading and if you would like to learn more, come along to one of my workshops and have some fun along the way.