The beautiful Amy relaxing at home
Oct, 2017Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
The shot was taken in a flat in Wakefield in Yorkshire. The flat is partly converted into a studio, but I wanted a natural look for this shot so we used the lounge on the first floor to take advantage of the light from the picture window.Time
It was just before 2pm, about 20 minutes before the end of the shoot.Lighting
As I mentioned, I wanted a natural feel to the image, so we used natural light with Amy turned slightly towards the picture window. No artificial lights or modifiers were used for this shot.Equipment
The camera was my trusty Nikon D7100 with a Nikon 18-105mm f3.5-5.6. The shot was taken hand-held at 1/160, f5.3 at 66mm, ISO 3200. I wasn't to bothered about noise as I wanted a non-studio feel anyway and some noise would enhance that feel.Inspiration
We wanted to do a 'boyfriend shirt' set. I asked Amy to consider that she had an unplanned stay-over after being out with her boyfriend the night before, and borrowed a shirt to use as a nightshirt. I suggested that Amy adopted a neutral look, as if she was tired and didn't want to be up and about.Editing
I wanted a fairly natural look so post-processing was minimal, a bit of lightening of tones to bring out the colour in Amy's hair, otherwise it was largely as shot, no cropping was carried out either.In my camera bag
I shoot many genres, including sports, aviation, wildlife, landscapes, architecture, and of course beauty and fashion. My kit loadout therefore depends on what I am shooting, but most often my bag will include a Nikon D3 with Sigma 150-600 and 1.4 teleconverter, a Nikon D810 with a Nikon 24-70 f2.8 or a Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art, and either a Nikon 70-210 or 80-300, sometimes a Sigma 105 f2.8 macro. I occasionally have a Sigma 8mm fisheye in the bag too. I always have a lightweight Manfrotto tripod in my car. I often have a lighting bag with a TTL speedlite, three non-TTL speedlites, wireless triggers and receivers, and a remote cable release and filters. I also use heavy duty light stands with weighted bags for counter balancing the weight of softboxes etc. For the weight I don't use sand, I carry small, empty milk bottles which I fill with water on-site, no point carrying heavy sand around in the car ! These fit perfectly in the weight bags !Feedback
Don't be afraid to experiment, and throw the rulebook away, you can learn a lot by experimenting. I often start off shooting at 1/125th, and f9-f11, get a feel for the image then vary the settings to achieve a different, usually softer, look. If you use a tripod, turn off the image stabilisation! Experiment with different colour reflectors to produce different fill-in lighting effects. And if you are using lights, remember to have your subject a little further away from walls to avoid shadows, and diffuse the light. A white cloth can make a great diffuser ! Involve your subject, tell them what you are trying to achieve and ask them if they have any ideas. And finally, don't overprocess the image, this can make the image appear very 'stiff' and posed.
