Dancer in coloured dress 2

I met with the model (Zu Ivanova, model mayhem # 4269747) in my studio, which is basically an empty office floor with all its charm and lack thereof. For this s...
Read more

I met with the model (Zu Ivanova, model mayhem # 4269747) in my studio, which is basically an empty office floor with all its charm and lack thereof. For this shoot, it was a great place.
For this part of the shoot, it had to be dark. As my studio cannot be properly darkened, we met on an evening in October and started shooting after sunset.
Two strong permanent LED lights with standard reflectors and honeycombs were placed camera-left and camera-right respectively. The model moved between these lights during a long exposure. One, sometimes two flashes were fired on the second curtain, i.e. at the end of the exposure. The flashes also had honeycombs in order to avoid light-spills. The background was made of two black paper rolls and a black curtain, giving us about eight meters of black background.
Equipment
As equipment I relied on two studio flashes with short flash duration (Godox QT600) with tele-reflectors and honeycombs and two 150W LED lights with standard reflectors and honeycombs. Further a Nikon D800 with a Nikon 85mm lens on a sturdy tripod, radiotrigger for the flashes and a remote shutter release. Black cloth and paper for the background.
This setup shows so much more than a standard photograph: The "before" is recorded as well, giving a mystic feeling of time and movement. In other, somewhat more sober words: it's a movie in a photo...
Editing
I darkened the ceiling and the floor in post. Otherwise, it was some correction of exposure, clarity and contrast.
If you'd like to try it, make sure there's absolutely no light on your background (e.g. by using honeycombs and enough distance between the background and the model). With the gritted lights, the model has to stay exactly on the line between the two LED lights, otherwise she's in the dark. It's not easy for the model, be patient. Zu Ivanova did a great job!
20181011 146.JPG
Read less