Brylee 5
Model: Brylee
Photographer: Steven Hendricks
Thanks to Koeal Braxton Photography workshop and the amazing model Brylee. This was a fun... wet... sho...
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Model: Brylee
Photographer: Steven Hendricks
Thanks to Koeal Braxton Photography workshop and the amazing model Brylee. This was a fun... wet... shoot!
Copyrighted (c) 2016, Steven Hendricks Photography, All rights reserved
Read less
Photographer: Steven Hendricks
Thanks to Koeal Braxton Photography workshop and the amazing model Brylee. This was a fun... wet... shoot!
Copyrighted (c) 2016, Steven Hendricks Photography, All rights reserved
Read less
Mar, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
The water splash photo of the beautiful and amazing model Brylee Williamson was taken by me in a studio owned by my friend and fellow Viewbug member mexcellent that I often frequent here in Okinawa, Japan. Mexcellent was so gracious to allow us to use his studio and worked pretty hard with a mop and a squeegee to clean up the mess we were making! Sorry Carlos! Of course it couldn't have been done without the teaching of the great and published Photographer Koeal Braxton who taught me the method of capturing a great water splash model shoot.Time
When you first look at the photo its hard to believe that this was taken in a brightly Sun lit room surrounded by picture glass windows on three sides. The shoot started around 9 in the morning and the sun was already shining brightly into the windows. Great thing about high speed sync photography, ls the ambient light in the room just "goes away". This perfectly allows for you to shape the light just how you want it.Lighting
With any stop motion photography, the key to capturing a crisp and well lit shot starts with controlling your ambient light and introducing strobe light and an extremely high shutter speed and low ISO. But wait... doesn't an increased shutter speed cause less light you might ask, and what about camera flash sync??? That's where high speed sync comes into play. Most high-end DSLR's offer the capability to perform highspeed flash Sync. In the case of my Nikon, 1/200 is considered the flash sync before banding starts occurring. Both my strobe and triggers support the high speed function allowing me to use shutter speeds as great as 1/8000. The water is being thrown in by assistants and you want the water to be sharp and crisp. Also make sure that you keep an aperture that allows enough focal length to keep everything in focus but let enough light into the picture . By shooting at 1/3200 using my camera's high speed sync, the only light getting in was what the strobe provides, both freezing the water in motion and exposing the model perfectly.Equipment
This shot was taken with a Nikon D610 (take that cannon!!!!) and a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II AF-S, using Yongnuo Yn-622N wireless flash triggers, and Prophoto B1 studio strobes, impress 28inch beauty dish with 20degree grid, impress softbox with bowens mount, and a Westcott Black muslin backdrop held up by a Manfrotto backdrop support. Lets not forget the four most important ingredients into the success of this photo shoot; add: 1 beautiful model add: Lots of water and a few cups add: An assistant or two that you can actually convince to torture the poor model by throwing an unwarranted amount of cold water on them... repeatedly (Poor Brylee....) wait who am I trying to fool, had to send people away! hehe add: lastly a mop boy recruited from the local peep show house for his amazing skill with mopping up wet messes.. ok ok, sorry again Carlos, you were great!Inspiration
As a photographer, I'm a part of many local Facebook photography groups here in Okinawa. The highly published fashion and model photographer, Koeal Braxton who has been gracing our groups with image after image of beautiful model shoots and magazine covers, announced his time in Okinawa sadly was up and was going to host one last workshop before he left. Luckily for me, it was a water splash shoot! After learning the technique, he left us to our own whim to see what creations we could come up with. As a Star Wars fan, I was very excited to shoot with Brylee with her Star wars shirt and lovely storm trooper tattoo. The only thing that was missing was blaster blasts and glowing light sabers. I guess water was the weapon of choice and boy did it pan out!Editing
For a picture like this, less is quite often more! There is (and should always be) a level of post processing involved. I'm an avid Adobe Photoshop CC user and had hardly ever dabbled with Adobe Lightroom. This was actually my first time using Adobe Light room to process any image. Prior to this I had only used Lightroom for the cataloging ability. I wanted a slightly de-saturated look so a few movement of the sliders to de-saturate, add some clarity, and adjust the overall exposure and wam, bam, thank you maam, a making of a beautiful picture began. Because water is quite non forging and goes pretty much every, I had to clone out a few droplets that didn't look so good over her face, add some sharpening and that was pretty much the extent of the process that was required.In my camera bag
I have always been a gadget geek. You never quite know what you will need when out on the field doing photography. There is nothing worse then going for a shot and saying to yourself, if I only had...... So lets start with the bag. I am a proud owner of a Tamrac 787 Extreme Super photo Backpack at the hefty price tag of around $1000.00. If your looking for bag that can handle almost any type of torture besides falling in your campfire, this is the one to go with. I'm easily able to hold everything I need for a regular day of shooting. My bag usually consist of my Nikon D610 FX body, a Nikon SB-600 Speedlight, Yongnuo YN560 IV Speedlight, Yongnuo Yn-622N iTTl Triggers, Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G , Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 35mm f/1:1.8G, Tamron AF 90mm f/2.8 Di SP AF/MF 1:1, Tamron AFA011N700 SP 150-600mm, Manfrotto Befree tripod, several collapsible speedlight modifiers, weye feye wireless tethering trigger and the triggertrap for intervalometer shooting using my cell phone.Feedback
Plan, plan and if you haven't done so plan some more. A great photo shoot starts way before you ever take your camera out of your bag. Know your location, know the lighting situation, know your camera, your equipment, and read up on high speed sync. Many professional strobes do not offer the ability to sync beyond your camera flash sync. Most brand name speedlights are capable of high speed sync but may not produce enough power to get the look desired in a water splash shoot. luckily the Prophoto and yongnuo combination allows high speed sync. If your on a budget, I highly encourage looking at the Adorama Flashpoint moonlight 600ws strobes as they have built in capabilities for high speed sync using either their add-on transceiver, or yongnuo triggers with iTTl capabilities. Warm up your water!!! If you want your model to happily sit there while you unleash Niagara falls amounts of water her way, make it comfortable for her. It's inevitable whenever she feels that first drop of cold water hit her body, or even worse come at her face those eyes will close faster then a mouse trap on a hungry mouse eating its last meal! We photographers often say, don't worry about checking your shots, this is the exception. You have to keep an eye out for closed eyes. In this particular shot, I was lucky because the closed eyes actually added to the shot but this isn't always the case. Make sure your assistance can time there tosses with your 1, 2, 3 count. It's important to make sure you are able to catch the shots when the water is coming from both sides and looking its best. Lastly, pay your mop boy well, he will be very very, very busy!
