I had met with the wonderful Sarah Mac months ago, but it took me forever to come up with a concept for her.
This, actually, isn't it! This is from a set we did after the main shoot, playing around in the 10 minutes extra we had while her dad waited for us to finish up.
I had brought the goggles in from the prop room at the beginning of the shoot, and then as Mallory changed the hair from the previous look, I pulled out about five different things, including this scarf thing that I'd picked up in Elora, Ontario during Thanksgiving. Mallory chose it to use, and we asked Sarah to scream. We only shot about a half dozen frames of this particular combination, but it's probably my favourite from the entire day.
The main shoot wasn't a nude, and the truth is, I rarely shoot nudes, but Sarah is one of the foremost nude models in town, and when we started playing around, we had a little blouse on her. But after putting the goggles on, and picking a neck treatment, the shirt was just too busy, so we removed it, and got this image.
The lighting is interesting in this shot and your website notes: No flash. Could you describe the lighting, please?
I like the composition - the angle where she emerges from the bottom right corner.
The lighting is brightest on her right arm. I suppose without the goggles we'd see (perceive) more light on the face, so I shouldn't be complaining too much. The uncensored version shows better. The continuity of the ripples of light is spoiled by the banner. Great place to put the credits!
Jeff Haveman wrote:
Awesome! Does she have braces or a retainer? That is the only nitpick for me, but not a big deal. Your work on your site is exceptionally nice!
Yes, she has braces top and bottom. She was really shy about showing her teeth, at the start, but for a few shots, near the end of the session, she was a gamer. Normally I would see something like this in an image, and want to fix it. But when we were talking about her showing her teeth, Mallory (MUA) and I said that they were just part of her at this point in her life, so why be ashamed of them. We also said that often times something that might be considered a small flaw would, in fact, end up being the unique thing that makes a model notable - like a mole or a gap in the teeth. So, after that, it would have been a bit hypocritical of me to clone them out.
Jim Rickards wrote:
The lighting is interesting in this shot and your website notes: No flash. Could you describe the lighting, please?
I like the composition - the angle where she emerges from the bottom right corner.
The lighting is brightest on her right arm. I suppose without the goggles we'd see (perceive) more light on the face, so I shouldn't be complaining too much. The uncensored version shows better. The continuity of the ripples of light is spoiled by the banner. Great place to put the credits!
Yeah, when you fire the strobes remotely, the exif reads 'no flash'. Kind of annoying.
Anyway, lighting for this was fairly simple.
One light on the background, feather across and with random stuff in front to break up the ovoid circle. Hard to tell in the web conversion, but in the full sized printable version, it gives enough light to show that the background is a mottled green.
Twin small strip boxes as rim lights, set about 3-4 feet from the model, just out of frame.
Snoot, high and over camera position, lighting the face and spilling down on the body.
Gridded medium softbox very low, in front of model (camera centrelight) firing up and feathering light on to her.
Spiderlights at 45 left and right - not really adding light to the scene, but acting as a) focus lights; and b) keeping the models eyes dialated (clearly not important with goggles, but with the other shots, that was important b/c I keep the studio lights off when shooting, and the modeling lights on the snoot/gridded softbox weren't bright enough to keep her pupils small).
Camera position on this shot was, I think, fairly high - two steps up a ladder, if I recall correctly.
