1/80 s, f/1.6, ISO 100, 50 mm

I shot these images in a bar and used mostly ambient light with a little fill from a small softbox.

1/80 s, f/2.5, ISO 2000, 85 mm

1/160 s, f/2.5, ISO 100, 135 mm

For the above photo I lit the model with a single speedlight in a medium size Lastolite softbox.

1/200 s, f/4, ISO 100, 135 mm

Here I used a white shoot-through umbrella and a silver reflector for fill in a butterfly configuration (note the catchlights in her eyes).

1/200 s, f/4, ISO 100, 135 mm

For the last photo I used the softbox again. To add tonal transitions to the walls I lit them with a second speedlite pointed to the corner behind the model.

Initially this background light gave a spot which was too hot for my taste. To tone it down I used a Sto-Fen diffuser and covered the diffuser’s front surface with a piece of Gaffer’s tape.

'A Simple Portrait

The post A Simple Portrait first appeared on TomOnTheRoof Photography Blog.

Kasia is a musician. I really like her pose in the above image, which I believe resembles a musical symbol. I shot these photographs with a wide angle lens, 35mm on a full frame camera. I totally love looking through this glass! When used from a low perspective it helps emphasize the height of the model.

I lit these images with a single small flash in a Lastolite Ezybox 24″ softbox. It gives a bit more punchy light than my Westcott Apollo but I really like this light’s quality and how convenient it is to set up. Just pop it open and throw it on a stand.

Shooting at my sync speed 1/200 s, at f/6.3 and ISO 100 gave me an underexposure of the ambient by 1 stop. The flash was fine tuned until I was happy with the flash and ambient balance. Keeping everything in manual mode helped achieve consistent exposures.

Racking out the lens to 200mm and shooting wide open (f/2.8) gave a shallow depth of field and strong compression of perspective resulting in a pleasing bokeh. Still using my Ezybox. You can tell where the light was by the shadows on the road and on her face.

The nuns passing by in the background were no coincidence. There is a monastery nearby and at times we could hear the beautiful singing of the sisters. At this point I knew I got the shots and could relax. But as we walked back towards the city center I continued  photographing  just to get a larger variety of the images.

For this image I used 200mm, f/2.8, 1/50 s, ISO 1600. The red shapes are car lights – I waited for them to appear in the right spot. As it was already dusk and I was basically killing the ambient (except for those car lights) I added a second flash, camera right, to bring some highlights and contrast to the shadow side of the hair.

Back to 35mm but at f/1.4. This very last shot was taken rather fast at the Cloth Hall in the center of Krakow. I think strong graphical elements like these repeated columns make a great background for a full-body portrait.

Overall I am very pleased with the results. As always I spent a lot of time analyzing what worked and what went wrong. Next time I will have a more defined idea for the location but will stay open to any unexpected opportunities.

'Kasia Photo Shoot

The post Kasia Photo Shoot first appeared on TomOnTheRoof Photography Blog.