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Jan, 2019Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo is an example of a serie that was taken in my own bathroom. I intended to show a falsely real moment of a person taking a bath or a shower and I needed the environment to be a real space and only the circumstances of the person, who is fully dressed, is the strange and peculiar issue.Time
In this case it doesn't matter, since there isn't any natural ligh. In fact, the only window that the space has (behind the white shower curtain), was completely covered with black opaque paper due to avoid all the back natural light in the pictures. But if you want to know, the session took place over the course of a morning, for 3 or 4 hours time.Lighting
Well, the lighting (to call it somehow) was done in a rather peculiar way. I have always made a photography based on landscapes, trips, urban... but I really wanted to start working with people, portraits and other styles for which I already had several ideas to start. And this was my very first session with models, and I had very little studio lighting equipment, hardly anything; so I did it with the elements at my disposal, two outdoor halogen spotlights and a pair of home lights and even I didn't have any kind of softbox or diffusers or regulator or anything, so I played with the lights the best I could, bouncing them to the walls, on the bathroom mirror... until I got a result that I liked and, really, for my surprise it was quite close to what I wanted to achieve and I had in mind before taking the photos, with a certain theatrical touch and a large presence of hard shadows that gave personality to the model and the scene, but it was all quite rudimentary, however, I have so many good memories of this first job, since it was all very fun.Equipment
For this work I used a Canon EOS 650D camera and a Canon EF-S 18-135mm, f3.5 lens and a tripod for most photos. And anything else. Well, it is important to highlight the presence of a dehumidifier, without which the session couldn't have been done, since in a small bathroom, with the shower constantly pouring water and splashing water out of the bathtub, the humidity level It would have been huge, but the apparatus kept it at bay and it could be done without any condensation problems or anything.Inspiration
As I explained before, this work was the first I did with models, which is something I wanted to do for a long time. I like the idea of working with characters, not just models, so it is important to me that there is an idea, some motivations and a stage that justify the performance of the model. In this case, the idea came from a piece of experimental video creation that I had done a few months ago in which, without a precise explanation, all the actions that occurred were the opposite of the "normal life", only with the intention of doing thinking to the viewers on what is socially established and the inertia with which we often do things, although possibly it is not what we want or how we want to do it in life. In one of those parts a person was seen returning to his house (supposedly from his work) completely naked; dropped his briefcase, the keys... then he dressed, and went to the bathroom where he took a fully dressed shower. It was something visually interesting and I thought that a person in the shower, fully dressed, could be a good base to develop this idea in photographs.Editing
I did post-processing in the photos. It was not a great edition but it was an important part of the final result of the session, as I wanted to give them a cinematic look. I changed the white balance a little to make it a little cooler; in general, the colors were a bit desaturated, except for the red of the shoes that I wanted to have a great presence; I increased the contrast and I gave importance to the textures for highlight them as much as possible. Finally, I did the details and some volumes with Dodge & Burn and I applied a vignette to focus the attention in the center of the image.In my camera bag
Actually, my equipment is larger and more professional than what I had at the time of doing this job. Now my main camera is a Canon 5D Mark III and as secondary cameras I have a Canon 7D Mark II and a Sony a6000. My main lenses are a Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 and a Canon 50mm f1.4. I also have a Sigma 17-70mm f2.8 and a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye. What I put in my backpack depends on the work I am going to do, although usually one or two Yongnuo 600 ex-rtII flashes always accompany me. I don't usually use the tripod much, but it logically depends on the circumstances.Feedback
As I explained earlier, it took me a long time to start taking the pictures that I really wanted to do. I had neither good technical equipment nor enough photography knowledge. But today I realize that it is not important not to have the best camera and, in terms of knowledge, it can be achieved as you practice, because trying things, making mistakes and learning from mistakes is a very important and a fun part of the path of taking the photographs you want.
