Hey everyone!
Recently Zee Zee wandered into my home studio for a photoshoot. I wanted to try and capture some artistic portraits, and with her experience as a dancer, some shots of her in motion, capturing multiple elements of a dance move in a single exposure by strobing the flash.
We also wanted to create some work in collaboration with a make up artist, Kayla. Thus, this was a shoot completed in two parts.
We started off by doingsome photography using coloured gels, where a cellophane like material is placed between the light and the person being photographed, which gives the portrait a different colour. You see this a lot in marketing photography for fitness products and to create a different, otherwordly mood or atmosphere in the image.
The real challenge with gel photography is picking the right colours,and ensuring that light is sculpted well on the model, otherwise you can run into problems like oversaturated light, or even worse, making the person look completely un-natural!
These images were lit with a combination of a GODOX AD600BM and a GODOXAD200 - both awesome lights.
I then captured some more portraits using more conventional lighting techniques, with some classical portrait lighting using a single light and a reflector. This included a couple of full length portraits.
We then had make up artist, Kayla come in and do her thing, transforming Zee Zee's look into something else. I captured a few shots show off the make up in fine detail, as Kayla did an incredible job!
These images were all shot with a single light, with a really shallow depth of field. I used a combination of my 85 f/1.8 and 35 f/1.8 to capture this shots. The 35mm lens is a new addition to my stable, and I'm really pleased with the level of detail it is able to resolve, and in particular, the natural looking perspective it gives to the images.
Retouching on these images was very light, and no real work was required - Zee Zee and Kayla are clearly professionals who know what they're doing!
Finally, it was time to reset my flash and lighting to capture the last set of images - where I wanted to have a real sense of motion, and capture movement in a single frame. These sorts of images are quite popular if you look for photographs of dancers - as it captures the motions in a single frame.
In order to achieve this, every light was turned off, the camera was set to a four second shutter speed, and the flash was set to strobe once every four seconds. This ratio was played with throughout, and the shot below is the best outcome that I managed to generate from a single exposure. The image below is not a composite!. It is a single frame. All done in camera, apart from the darkening of the background as a fair bit of light flooded the bakdrop, making creases evident.
This sort of movement is something I want to capture a lot more of - as it is really fun to experiment with movement overtime in order to see what the camera sees when the light strobes. It is capturing an extended slice of time, which is something that has always fascinated me about photography, and now is no exception. A high F-Stop (aroound F8) was used, along with a strict set of "boundaries" taped out on the floor, in conjunction with manual focus to ensure each "exposure" on the single frame would be in focus, or close to in focus.
There's a bit of luck involved with these sorts of shots, as is shown by the next image, which I regard as... less successful.
Finally, we had a final look to complete, which was using a combination of Chiffon and some standard sort of lighting to freeze motion. These shots were generated from sheer exhaustion as we were all keen to obtain pizza by this point. I think they came out well!
What do you think of this set of images? I'm happy to answer any and all questions!
They're all lovely shots, I'd would prefer the shots in portrait. But how did you go about the other ones having extra eight hands @holoz0r ?
Hey, thanks for asking!
I set the AD200 to strobe 8 times over 2 seconds, and used a 2 second shutter speed. Each time the flash went off, it captured the hands in a new spot, and filled in all the other (relatively) static elements in the image. :)
Wow, that's really creative!
Thanks for telling me. Stay blessed @holoz0r
No problems at all! Have a lovely day!
Thanks a lot. Have a good time @holoz0r
Wow!!
Great pictures!
I really like the ones in conventional light technique and the ones with motion are spetacular.
Really good work!
Thanks for sharing with us.
Thank you so much!
This was a fantastic post! They really are both pros! That eye makeup and the lighting really brought her eyes out in those close-ups. She has such striking eyes. The motion capture shots were awesome as well. Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing here in the community!
Thank you!
I will definitely to continue to post new work as I capture it! Don't have anything scheduled in for a few weeks (a day job stops me from shooting as much as I'd like - but HIVE is my home for posting long form content about my photography!)
In cases where the quality is so good... the longer the better! hahaha =) Someday maybe creating and sharing content will/can be our day jobs?!!
I'm imagining her literally lost or exploring and just accidentally stumbling across your house and meandering in to see what it was perhaps not realising it was a house XD
Those are some great shots, if I didn't read I would have asked if your model was a dancer or a gymnast, she looks powerful O_O
Think the only thing wrong with the octodancer was capturing the floor XD
How was the sweet taste of success and pizza afterwards? :)
I wish it was a little gingerbread house in that context - random people wandering by and deciding to have a photoshoot! It isn't.
Glad that you read, otherwise what was the point of writing?
The pizza was pretty amazing. It always is.
Maybe you could put a sign out the front XD
On the offchance that people will actually read and get the easy answers you will probably be commonly asked but then in cases like places on dA that's apparently way too much hard work and you can tell when they haven't bothered? XD
I remember when I used to post work on dA - I probably couldn't read back in those days. I was so young and uneducated. :D