Bella
This was the very last shot of the session and loved it.
This was the very last shot of the session and loved it.
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Jan, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in the outskirts of Chula Vista, California by the lake, this area is near the olympic training center, it is a bike trail so we had to keep an eye on the cyclist passing by, but the area is beautiful.Time
I normally ask my models if we can do the photo shoots early in the morning to avoid direct and harsh sunlight, but they were a little late so we did this one a little later in the morning.Lighting
I am a natural light photographer, in fact, I don't even own a flash! occasionally I will use a reflector, but in this case the only reflector I had was coming from the water in the lake itself.Equipment
I used my faithful 85 mm on my Canon 6D camera, there was no need for anything else since the light and scenery were so nice.Inspiration
I love taking photos outdoors, but specifically in the woods, I had driven by this area before several times and loved the view, so one day i decided to go walk the trails to scout the area for a good photo shoot, turns out it is all beautiful, it does not matter which way you look, every way you get a great shot. I was waiting for the perfect model to take there, and when she asked me for a photo shoot, I had the perfect place.Editing
The shot itself was beautiful with out any edits, but I wanted that dreamy feeling to it, so I used Photoshop to soften the shadows by adding blue to them and made them darker, I gave the colors a pop by using a mask with overlay, and lower the brightness a bit with levels, basically I just played around with my levels until I felt the dark and lights where at the point I liked them.In my camera bag
I do not carry much in my bag, in fact, I only own 3 lenses and my Canon 6D, so I carry them with me all the time, I have an 85 mm, a 50 mm and the kit lens that came with my old camera that is an 28-135 mm.Feedback
The best advice I can give would probably be on the model, not the lighting, the lighting is very standard, I stay away from direct sunlight as much as possible, not have much distractions around the model and so on... In my opinion, what makes the difference in the image is how you direct the model, it can get tricky with little kids, so what I do is have a conversation the whole time, I asked her the normal questions, how old she was, what grade she was in and so on, and to get my shots, I will throw surprise exclamations like "oh look, a butterfly!" or "there is a wrinkle in your skirt" this creates natural reactions and movements that allows for this kind of shots, but first, don't forget to warn the parents, on this shot I told the Bella to fix her skirt to get her to look down and the mom went flying into the picture to try to fix the "wrinkle" so needless to say I had to repeated.
