Shooting Spree | Finished

It’s kind of been a long week – and it’s not even really over yet. The last four days turned out to be much more work than I had anticipated it being. When I originally came up with the idea of a ‘week of photoshoots to celebrate our new studio, and my new career’ – I didn’t realize how many other things I had planned at the same time.

I decided to try out some stuff that I’ve never done before – in this case, composite photos where I put several photos together to make one. And it was interesting to go from the first shot (just above with Adam a jumping blur) to the final product – with Adam in flight – and Robby no longer holding the cooler from which Adam is launching.

Or revisiting the idea the next day with a larger cast of characters.

I can’t thank Adam enough for putting up with the number of ‘jump takes’ I made him do.

Now – finding models can be difficult – and finding dependable models that show up + are good to work with can be extra difficult sometimes (especially at the free rates that we pay). Somehow – we had 2 or more models all four days. Of course – Intern Debra played a big role in rounding up willing participants.

However – it was also nice to have Leah’s sister come in and be a Princess for a night.

This is my attempt at trying to make a ‘different’ shot of the Princess. All of the Interns seem to have made bright, ‘Princess’ like photos.  So with this – I went the opposite way. Without physically tearing her down – the shadows do all of my work – the black sockets where bright eyes should go, the deep shadows filling the right side of the frame – and the smile comes off as sarcastic or demented in this context of dark shadows. Heck – even the extremely wrinkled backdrop adds to the effect of an ‘ideal’ scene turned wrong.

It was definitely nice to be working with other photographers everyday.

Over the last two days, with less Interns to manage, I started actually shooting. The first two days I was primarily concerned with setting up a specific shot, and then demonstrating how to ‘make’ it for the Interns. After Tuesday night’s session, on Wednesday morning I just felt like shooting on my own.

I still helped out Debra and Ally – and fortunately they were content to just keep shooting on their own and asking for help only when they really got stuck or had a question. So I worked with Jamie for a little while.

Just some quick shots using both natural light and off camera flash.

And then of course we setup a final shot:

Natural light or off-camera flash? Which to use? Both.  Of course – I do wish that I had some color gels to match light temperatures.

Yesterday, Valorie showed up.

After all of the off-camera flash work with the Interns, I was ready to use only natural light for a little while – and that’s when we learned that hey, your hands can be reflectors too.

Seriously, all of the light you see on her face is being bounced off of her hands.

Have I mentioned how much I like this window? Oh yes I do.

This is Arya. (Like Mariah – except without the ‘M’). She helped us out on Tuesday night, modeling for the Army of Interns.

Somehow we convinced her to come back – so I made sure that I got some different photos of her.

That was my week.

Let’s go.