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Contest Finalist in Facing Down Photo Contest 2022
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This shot was just a matter of "right place at the right time", I was in San Diego and had planned to shoot with Kristy Jessica with some interesting beachwear ideas we had discussed, but when she arrived, she had brought this fantastic dress with her, and I said "Oh, we have to shoot this somewhere!", so we wandered through the hotel, and the adjoining club had left the door open, so we walked into the empty club (it was mid-afternoon), and they had this great staircase, so I gave Kristy a speedlight with an FStoppers Flash disc and a remote trigger, told her to go down, while I went up. I immediately saw this great symmetry, and almost a "James Bond" feel to the image, I had her lay that way, leaned waaay out, and got this shot, it's definitely one of my favorites.Time
I shot this mid-afternoon while the club was closed, we got some really great shots in other spots in side the club too, before hotel security came along and started with the whole "Are you supposed to be in here?" routine, which ended up with us having to leave the club, luckily for us, we'd already got a lot of good stuff!Lighting
Nothing overly complicated about this lighting, one speedlight just out of frame near Kristy, you can see the light pattern, it's just a speedlight, with a big diffuser standing on its little stand. There was a decent amount of natural light spilling in from the large club windows too though.Equipment
This shot was taken with my Canon 60D, handheld, and leaning as far as I could to try and get to the center of the opening to shoot as straight down as possible, @ 1/100th, F4, ISO 1000. I shot this with my Canon 24-105L F4, @24mm. The flash was triggered by a pair of Yongnuo 622C's, which had no problem covering the distance from her to me, which was about 3 floors away.Inspiration
When she brought this dress out, I saw it and said, "Oh yes, we need to shoot this!", it wasn't even part of the original plan, I have some really good shots of her on the staircase with it as well that I will add to my profile soon, it fit her perfectly, which is a surprise, because she is a tiny girl! :)Editing
This shot looked so good straight from the camera, there's very little post work done in it, raised the brightness a little, and smoothed out a little of the noise, that's about it. All the elements just worked as they were, I wish that were the norm! :)In my camera bag
These days, I'm really trying to fight GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome!), it's a constant struggle though! At the moment, I carry a Canon 6D, my trusty 60D, a 50mm 1.4, my 70-200 2.8IS, my 24-105, and recently added a Canon 100mm Macro lens, as well, I always carry 1 speedlight (currently a Yongnuo YN-685), a decent diffuser and a set of gels for it, oh.. and remote triggers.. and.. and ...and... it just happens, I can't help it! :)Feedback
Start with something that looks great. Kristy in that dress was stunning. Then I just dragged her through the location, in this case it was my hotel, until I found something that I thought was interesting, we got several cool shots in the club, it's interesting because you don't usually have a completely vacant club to shoot in, and they are designed to look "cool" anyway, so that was pretty helpful, almost as helpful as the employee that left the adjoining hotel door open in the first place! :) Don't be a rush, especially when working with models, they want to get great shots too, and it's very seldom that they don't want "your best work" too. If it looks visually interesting, play with it a bit! (I'll post one of two of the other shots from the club in the next few days, to my account, if anyone is interested).