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Location
This photo was actually taken in a small passage between the living house and a factory, where the owners had a small company in the past. Today there is a house for a family and a Photostudio at the other side. Everything is old and made of wood. In fact, we did a photography workshop in the Studio there and Angelina was our model.
Time
After the workshop - I think it was about 6pm in summer - I asked her to create a few pictures in the old part of the studio. It is upstairs. Not suitable for a workshop. Everything is full of old furniture and stuff. But perfect for me and her to shoot. And the light up there was just perfect.
Lighting
The window was like a hexagon. But simple and old. The sky was a bit cloudy and the sun already at the other side of the building. So we had perfect indirect light through the window. The background of this picture is lit by a bit window. There is the entrance of the family house as you can imagine the door there. Because of the small window, we had much more light into her face and less light at her body. This gives a bit more detail into the body part. And very important for a good painting of the shape is, that she's turning the body a bit away from the light source, so we have more like a side-light on her body. The face is turned into the light, and that gives us a soft and beauty light and wonderful shadows to her face. The very good thing is the contrast in the overall composition. Where she is lit up by the light, the wooden background is dark. Where she is dark and in shadow, the background ist bright. So we have a perfect contrast on each side of the model and so she pops out of the picture.
Equipment
For this picture I wanted a backgound that is already blurry and a tack sharp model. Because the eyes are in line with the body, we can easily have her in focus and blur the background. With an 85mm Lens, this was not very difficult. It was my Sigma Art 85mm on my Nikon D800e body. But the picture is not as old as this Camera body may seem to guess. I just used my Camera for many years, because it gave me exactly what I was looking for in my work. Usually the best combination for me was the Leica Summicron-R 50mm for this camera. But for this picture, I chose a different lens, for the reasons as described above. The 85 gives a faster fall-off in blurring the bokeh than the 50 does.
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Inspiration
Angelina is booked very often for lingerie shots. I can totally understand that. But I love to take pictures with her, where the sexyness is not in focus. Even if it is a lingerie picture and it is sexy of course, I love her mood she gives me through her face. Thats what makes the difference for me. It is not a sexy mood there. And that combination gives the image more depth than a picture which tells just "I am sexy". For me it is important to tell "I am a woman, a human being". The respect for my models is very important to me.
Editing
In post process I optimized contrasts and did some dodge and burn to support the already created shapes. I do not like to do very much post processing but to make the image pop, I have to enhance the contrasts.
In my camera bag
So as you can imagine from the text above, I travel light. I just carry my camera and two or three lenses with me. Sometimes a reflector too, but nothing else, if I shoot on location. Always with me - my 50mm prime lens. And most of the times a 35mm and / or an 85mm. Thats all. It's kinda funny when people ask to help me with my equipment if I arrive at a set, and I grab my bag and tell them: "Thank you I already have everything I need!"
Feedback
I you want to create similar pictures, just look for a window and a background which is able to give you some blur into the background. There are some key features here.
The contrast from left to right - background dark / model bright and model dark / background bright.
Bokeh. Keep the model in focus and blur everything else to make the model pop out of the background.
Light. Face the nose of the model towards the light, turn the body a bit away from the light.
Model. Cross the legs, so that the shape of the body becomes smaller at the bottom of the image and stand on one foot to tilt the hip a bit. That gives you shape into the body. Always look for the bottle form. Simply take a look at a coke bottle. That's the shape we try to achieve - a small waist. Between waist and arm there's a gap which shapes the form even more because of the strong contrast between background and model.
And always show respect. Being honestly interested in the people in front of your camera is the key to beautiful pictures with a mood.
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