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Canon 40d
70-200 L f-4
ISO 100
Shot @ 100mm.
Single strobe center slightly above model's eye level

Canon 40d
70-200 L f-4
ISO 100
Shot @ 100mm.
Single strobe center slightly above model's eye level
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upload_dateSep, 2015

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2 Comments |
BrunoHeeb PRO
 
BrunoHeeb September 22, 2015
cool shot ,love your style
pietnel
 
pietnel April 01, 2017
Gorgeous stunning shot

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#motorcycles
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Behind The Lens

Location

This image was originally taken for the cover of a online motorcycle magazine. The image was shot in the doorway of an motorcycle restoration shop in Nashville, TN. The model and bike were facing outward and I was standing outside the door.

Time

It was the summer of 2013, June I think, about 3 pm.

Lighting

We had spent about 2 hrs inside shooting the model against other antique bikes utilizing strobes with soft boxes. We went outside to shoot a few street scenes and I kept watching the light as the sun moved over the building. I realized the doorway was in a nice light and ask for the Indian motorcycle to rolled just inside the door. A rear shop door was open for some backlighting. A single strobe was used on camera for front fill and to add a touch of catch light to the model's eyes.

Equipment

Normally any thing I've shot commercially, I will use a full frame Canon body such as a 1Ds or one of my 5D's. However, in this case, I happen to have my old travelling "walk around" Canon 40D in the bag. I put the 1Ds back in the case and attached a Canon 70-200 L lens to the 40D. There's just something about the images from that old body that I love and in this case it proved worthy.

Inspiration

As mentioned above, it was for a magazine cover image. My main concerned was looking like any other biker chick shot utilizing a bike and model. The mag was targeting a more upscale reader. They originally wanted the bikini model in high heels and I steered them away from that to what hopefully was a more classy image that would appeal to their target audience. They took my advice and went with the color version of this image for the cover of their 1st issue.

Editing

Yes, the original image was color for the magazine. In the background, you could see a couple of shelves we had lined with antique motorcycle parts that were lit by the open rear door. It produced a really cool image for the client's need. However, as for me, I'm nuts about black & white and I knew this image had potential for a conversion to such. I pretty much blacked out the background and ramped up the contrast a tad to give the image a little more depth and mood. I toned down the bike also as to draw focus to the model. Of course there was the usual image tweaking that comes with digital images such as de-noising, de-hazing, a little sharpening, and tweaking the saturation on the color version.

In my camera bag

I started in the 70's with the Canon 35mm's and manual lens and yes, a Polaroid Land camera. Early 90's I switched to medium format with Pentax 645 bodies & Pentax lenses. Entering the digital age I went back to Canon having one of the original Canon 1d bodies. I also had the 35mm version. I gravitated upward as processors got better in the 1Ds series and into the 5d series. Lens 70-200 L , 28-105 L. 50mm 1.4. Usually 3 canon speed-lights, a ST-E2 Canon transmitter and a Canon wireless remote.In studio I have used Paul Buff White Lighting strobes. Now I only shoot with a 5d mk2 body and the 50mm lens. However as of this writing, I've decided to go to back to a crop sensor camera and return to my roots of street type photography with an emphasis on black & white images. Of course I will always have my old faithful Minolta light meters with me.

Feedback

Don't be rushed and watch the light. You may even try to capture the same image multiple times as the light changes. I like fill light as seen in this image by either a light or a reflector. Try different angles on using your fill light. I first shot this with a reflector for fill but it didn't highlight the eyes enough so I switched to a on camera flash. Try slightly different camera angles, here I dropped a couple of degrees below center of the image to bring a sense of command through the model's body language. I may shoot a hundred images just to get one I'm happy with.

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