Here is something we can learn from dayatocareva about the techniques and story behind this awarded photo.
1. dayatocareva,where did you take this photo?
The photo was taken in my home studio in London.
I am a self taught photographer, so every shoot is pretty much a new lesson for me.
2. What time of day?
Well, the shoot was planned to happen at around 12 noon. However, we actually went through a very hard day to have it done. I was exactly between cameras, sold my previous and was looking for a new one. I've met Roxy by accident the day before and she was leaving for Australia the next day after the shoot. So i had no choice but to have the shoot on this particular day and loaned the Nikon from a friend of mine, who by some accident forgot to pack the charger. So after doing Roxy's hair & make-up; after covering all floors and walls with plastic to protect it from powder; after setting up all the lights we started the shoot only to find out that being an old battery - it went flat in about 20 minutes and there was no charger to charge it back up.
So my partner had to rush all the way across London to find my friend at the gym and get the charger.
So eventually we continued the shoot from 6:00 in the evening.
It worked out to be a stressful and looooong day, but Roxy was a great sport to wait for the issue to be resolved and we came out of the shoot great friends, seeing that we had to chat so many hours while waiting for the charger.
3. Anything worth sharing about lighting?
We were shooting with a three lights set up: two Bowens speedlighs with gridded out softboxes, located on both sides of the model, facing each other. And a beautydish with a honeycomb from above and a bit to the side of the model to bring just a bit of the light.
4. What equipment did you use?
Camera: NIKON D3100
Lens: 50mm f1.8
Bowens 500r strobes
I don't usually use a tripod, I love to have the flexibility in my angles and height point. Even though sometimes it means a blurred shot
5. What inspired you to take this photo?
I actually dreamed of having powder shot done for a long time. I imagined how much you can do with it, what it might mean. I also like body/sport/fitness photography, however I didn't particular want a guy boxer. I don't think i knew exactly what i wanted until I met Roxy. Then it all made sense - the strength of her body, mixed with femininity of her wavy hair, the powder representing not only the power of her punch, but also it's determination, if you will.
I am now keen to experiment more with powder, will see what works best, but I'll try colored powder or maybe gels.
6. Did you do any post-processing? if yes, tell us about it!
I've cleaned the background, and after that everything was about contrast, dodging & burning to achieve something like an HDR effect. To accentuate her muscles and the flow of the powder.
7. What equipment do you normally have in your bag?
I am definitely a studio kind of person rather than outdoors.
So a couple of things you'll always see me using is any kind of grid, be it on a beauty dish or on a softbox. Or a honeycomb grid on barn doors. And I'm currently addicted to 55-250mm canon lens
8. Any advice for others trying to capture something similar?
First and foremost, cover everything up! We did and we are still occasionally find powder in some very unexpected places. Also let the model know, that she or he would probably need to take a shower before leaving your studio.
As for capturing actual powder - make sure your shutter speed is pretty fast around 1/200.
However, I'm sure I played with a few different speeds and apertures that day, so it's really a question of what works best on your model as well as the powder. And I more or less always keep my IOS to 100 when working with studio lights.
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TKO by dayatocareva
