NataliaToskina
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1Ernesto
January 17, 2015
A strong and wonderful use of light and the perfect model. Love the natural hair and the eyes are a wonderful blue accented with perfect catch lights. Your choice of body position and facial expression are explicitly hauntingly beautiful.
UnkleFrank
April 02, 2015
Congrats on your award. I agree whole heartedly with the other commenters.
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken in my studio in the center of Moscow. Since I started working as a professional primarily portrait photographer I have taken a lot of photos but this is one of the most favorite.Time
I and my model decided to meet at noon and spend a couple of hours together as I had a photo session and my model, Catherine Varkova is an actress, was going to have a rehearsal later.Lighting
In my work I used two studio flashes HENSEL EXPERT PRO 500. ?ne of them was with square soft box (1 m ? 1 m), which was placed over the model’s face and at an angle of 45 degrees to her. The second flash was used for the background illumination with a reflector and matte screen. Now I avoid working with flashes and prefer to work with continuous lightning.Equipment
This shot was taken by NIKON D300, aperture: f/14.0, ISO: 200, exposure: 1/250.Inspiration
I was thinking a lot before my session with Catherine. She has so pure and and wondrous beauty. She reminded me some of the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. And I wanted to show it with the help of my photos. Working with a professional actor as with a photo model is an exciting task but simultaneously challenging. On the one hand the actor is a person for whom " to make a pose" - it's a profession, who need not much time to overcome the embarrassment of the camera. On the other hand his feature - a tendency to excessive degree of professionalism. The actress has its own vision of the frame. She knows "how to". In particular, when we've started to do this image my model wanted to make a "makeup" as she was sure that she would be better, but I, looking at her face, saw a magic, porcelain beauty it possesses. This combination of breast skin, red hair and light, almost white eyelashes fascinated me. And I wanted to convey the specialty of this the beauty, but my model tried to make makeup immediately, because for the actress "no makeup" practically means the to be "nudity". It make me to be very persuasive, to defend their point of view. And the result was exactly as I intended. My advice to those who shoot portraits isthe following: the point of model's view is important but the author of the frame you are . Build it in your head, draw it in your mind and not let yourself bring down confused. Delicately insist on, hold on a selected logic of shooting. And the results are surely will pleased you.Editing
The was nothing special with the post-processing. I suppose that I just worked with density curves a little, and that was all.In my camera bag
I used to work with Nikon d300 and af nikkor 85 mm 1,4d, but later I turned to Nikon d4, af nikkor 135mm 1,8d and fish-eye nokkor 10,5 mm 2,8d and I am still working using them.Feedback
My advice to those who shoot portraits is the following: the point of model's view is important but the author of the frame you are . Build it in your head, draw it in your mind and not let yourself bring down confused. Delicately insist on, hold on a selected logic of shooting. Follow your intuition even if your model has some doubts about anything. Be imaginative and free. And the results are surely will pleased you.