houltonmahaney

Window light

One of my favorite models to work with

One of my favorite models to work with
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Canon EOS REBEL T1i

settings

Aperture f/2.8 ISO 200 Shutter 1/80

upload_date

Feb, 2014

Views

1626

Likes

+129

Awards

Contest Finalist in Elegant Fine Art Nudes Photo Contest

Great Shot

Peer Award

+17

Superb Composition

+14

Top Choice

Absolute Masterpiece

Outstanding Creativity

Exceptional Contrast

Superior Skill

Magnificent Capture

Top Class Lighting

Genius

Emotions

Impressed

Top Ranks

Top 20 rank

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Top 30 rank week 1

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Top 10 rank week 1

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Top 10 rank week 1

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Top 30 rank month 1

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Behind The Lens

Location

Hi! I took this photo of Lilith at a photography workshop in downtown Baltimore, called Vintage Vixens. It was a workshop that was led by my boss at the time Gail Kilker. We had a bunch of models and photographers who all had a chance to shoot with each other and update their portfolios with different models and different styles from the photographers. We had a great team of people we worked with regularly in Maryland, including Stacy Leigh who did Lilith's hair.

Time

I shot this towards the end of the workshop and the end of the day, I had been shooting for about 7 hours and was pretty tired and surprisingly hadn't shot anything in this room yet. This was shot on September 9th, 2012 at 5:17pm. Shooting in the evening was perfect because that one little window brought in a great soft light!

Lighting

I didn't have my own lighting equipment at the time, so I was pretty used to shooting with natural light. The only thing lighting the room was the window so I had Lilith pose near it.

Equipment

At the time I didn't have enough money to spend on gear and was using a Canon EOS Rebel T1i that I got as a Christmas present and I borrowed my boss's Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM. Because the room was pretty small and I was shooting on a crop sensor I kept the focal length at 70mm which made it closer to 112mm which was pretty tight even though I backed up to the opposite side of the room. I shot this handheld at f/2.8 at 1/80th of a second and ISO 200.

Inspiration

I took a couple shots before this and we were actually taking a small break, it was the end of the day and everyone was tired. I was looking at the back of my screen and noticed Lilith just looking out the window and just loved the subtle light on her back and legs and took this between posed shots. I'm not sure she even knew I was taking a picture at the time, but I think the right candid moments can be incredibly beautiful.

Editing

I used photoshop and Camera Raw to process this. The original photo is in color with blown out highlights. I actually took the recovery slider all the way to 100% to try and recover some of the details. I also dropped the brightness and upped the contrast. Then I took it into photoshop where I used a custom B&W preset I created to give all of my B&W photos a consistent look, the color photo is nice but I felt like it distracted from the light. After that I dropped the exposure a bit so the light on wall was almost completely black to make the light on her back and legs stand out more.

In my camera bag

Back when this was taken all I had in my bag was a Canon t1i, 18-55 kit lens and 50mm f/1.8. Since then I've been lucky enough to upgrade my gear and actually have a decent collection now. Nowadays I always keep my Canon 5D MKII in my bag with a 24-70mm f/2.8 II L USM that rarely comes off, when it does I use a 50mm f/1.4. When I shoot film I switch between my dad's old Canon EOS 620 that he gave me as a present, a Canon EOS 1-V, and a Canon A-1 with an assortment of old FD lenses. I also just got a Mamiya RB67 Pro-SD a couple days ago too and still haven't even shot a full roll on it yet, but I'm really excited to get into medium format!

Feedback

Look for light that's unique and expose for the highlights, it would have saved me a lot of post-processing and I feel like I would have had more wiggle room editing. Never be discouraged if you think you're photo is too over or under exposed, there's so much you can do with post processing to turn it into something you may not have even thought was possible. Also, always keep your camera ready, you'll never know when you'll have a chance to capture a great moment!

See more amazing photos, follow houltonmahaney

houltonmahaney

houltonmahaney

Window light

One of my favorite models to work with

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow houltonmahaney

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