Be prepared, isn’t that the Boy Scout motto? I guess I should have listened better when I was a cub…. This past weekend I had two great shoots with two wonderful models (see model info below) and from both some amazing images were produced, even with my lack of planning.
Starting off the DOH! moments for me was a closed door. So you might think, if it’s closed just open it. Well, as it turns out the door doesn’t open, it’s a fixed prop. The concept for the shoot was a pin-up style where the house wife (Beth) goes out to fetch the morning paper with her coffee cup in hand wearing just her nightie. The bright lights from the interior of the house shine through the door illuminating her figure for anyone to see who might be passing by. It is a classic pin-up, “oops” which has been done many times over the years. However, if the door doesn’t open, what’s a guy to do? Lucky for us the set had exterior houselights which didn’t actually turn on, but with a little editing magic will become the source of light. Here is the inspiration pin-up art next to the finished work from our shoot.
The Classic 1950′s Pin-Up Art:
Our 2009 Recreation in Real Life:
For the actual lighting we had two high powered cans behind the door shinning through a filter, a floor lamp behind her shining upward, and an Alien Bee with a soft box set to the highest power. Standing there I could see her outline perfectly, getting that image translated to the camera was more of a challenge that I thought it would be. Overall, I think it turned out and will have at least one more from this door series edited out to a final version. Beth also posed for some chair shots where the garder of her stocking was showing, and some fun let’s bake cookies wearing only a towel, oops my towel fell and I am holding this pan of cookies!? These shots turned out fantastic, check them out and you can read about the shoot from Beth’s perspective by visiting her modeling blog.
The next DOH! of the day came when we started the next shoot with Azmira. The majority of our shots were in the infinity room of the Minneapolis Photo Center, although I did want to get a couple next to the window using the natural light as the back light. On my first test shot I I realize outside the window was a cement mixer, not exactly the background I was looking for. I hadn’t noticed this as I checked out the space the last time I was at the center, so even thought I had made an attempt to be prepared I didn’t pay enough attention to detail. That old Drill Sargent who used to yell at us to pay attention to the details would be sadly disappointed. Instead we moved to the leather sofa to start our session and finished it off in the infinity wall.
Darn Cement Mixer!
Smoking on the Sofa!
Throughout the day I had a few more Homer moments, yet in the end the patients of the models and the ability to adapt to the situation resulted in capturing some beautiful light.