Pin-up style photoshoot

This past weekend I had the chance to work with model Alyssa and makeup artist Kahulani again. We also had assistance from Quddus, which made setting up the shoot much easier
(it's great to have an assistant.)

This time we worked in-studio to create a 50's pin-up style look.

For lighting we used 2 AB 800 bare bulb strobes aimed into white V-flats. Another AB 800 was used in a beauty dish mounted on a C-stand in front.


We started out using just the beauty dish as our light, with the 2 other AB 800s turned off.



As the shoot progressed, we turned on the 2 AB 800 strobes in the V-flats to get this look.


The V-flats are very easy to make. These are just 4x8 sheets of white styrofoam from Home Depot. They come in various thicknesses. I chose to go with 1" thick sheets, which run about $18 each. I used gaffers tape to join the sheets together on one side so that they could be propped up in a V-shape.


For our second set, we wanted to try to create a black and white film noir style of setting. We used just 2 lights for this. 1 SB26 with a gridspot aimed at the wall, and another SB26 with a cardboard snoot aimed at the model. The table is covered with a black satin sheet from Ross, and we hung some black cloth on a C-stand behind the model to block light from being reflected from the white cyc wall.


I eventually replaced the model's light with an AB800 and a gridded strip softbox, as the snooted light was a little too harsh on her.




Still working on the images from this shoot. It was the first time I've ever done pin-up style photography and it was a lot of fun!

One of the reasons why I use a Mac. ;-)

This video's in French, but even if you don't understand the language, it's well worth watching.

Waterfall shoot

Did a short photo session with Mandi, a model I met through Model Mayhem. We went to Twin Falls for the shoot but due to time constraints, tourists, and lots of mosquitos, we didn't quite have enough time to do a lot of different looks.

I first attempted to do natural light, using California Sunbounce reflectors. Since the sun kept going behind the clouds, I ended up having to improvise. I setup a SunBounce mini on a lightstand, and fired an SB26 with a 1/8 CTO gel into the reflector. I setup another SB26 with a 1/8 CTO gel on the rocks behind and to her left to give a little separation from the background. Didn't really need to, since there was some sunlight coming in that lit her hair quite nicely.


To get the smooth look of the waterfall, I used a slow shutter speed, somewhere around 1/8th I think. Had to try several times, since my tripod head wasn't cooperating with me and I had a lot of blurred shots. Think I might switch to a Really Right Stuff ballhead when I can afford it.


The light REALLY started to get good just before we had to leave. The sunlight coming through the trees was sparkling off the water quite nicely. Only had time to fire off a few shots so I'm going to have to try this concept of a model in the water with fabric again someday.

Seeing the light

Photographer Irwin Yamada once taught me that photographers need to learn to "see the light". Look around you to see what the existing light is doing and think about how you can make it work for you. You don't always need strobes and reflectors. It's an idea that I try to constantly remind myself to do everyday wherever I go, even when I'm not shooting.

I did a shoot at the Cove Beach with TJ from Model Mayhem this past Monday, and I had the opportunity to put this idea into practice.

We shot in the early morning, so the rocks on one side of the beach were shaded by some palm trees. I walked TJ to that spot and had her stand in the shadow of the trees. I had her maneuver around a bit until I got most of her face in the shadow and some of the sunlight hitting the back of her hair. The bright sand and sky behind me provided all the fill we needed and also put some nice detail in her eyes.

I took a few shots, then noticed that the background was rather dark, since it was all in shadow. I moved TJ to another spot up on the rocks where there were still some shadows from the trees, but also some sunlight hitting the bushes behind her.

TJ- Headshot, originally uploaded by Mizomi Photography.

For these images I used a Canon 5D with an 85mm 1.8 lens with no flash and no reflectors.
Shot at ISO 100, 1/60@ f5.6

Happy Anniversary, Joanne and Kevin!

My friends Joanne and Kevin are celebrating their first wedding anniversary today.

You can see highlights from their wedding via this link.

To celebrate, I found the perfect anniversary card for them at JibJab.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Experimenting with triptychs

Tiara recently asked me to do some multipanel images from our shoot together. I did a little research and learned that these types of images are called triptych (pronounced "trip-tick").
These are pretty easy to setup in Photoshop. I opened up the center image, expanded the canvas size to 3x the width of it, then imported the other two images and placed them to the sides. The red border is done by making a rectangular selection around each frame and adding a stroke of about 7 pixels. (sampling the red color from her outfit)

This was done in the same manner. Had a bit of trouble trying to match the colors between all three images. Still don't think I got it right.

This next one is called a tetraptych, since there's 4 panels. In the first version I made of this, the upper left shot was one of Tiara chugging a Red Bull. Thought it would make a cool ad, but she had me replace it with another shot because Red Bull wasn't sponsoring us for the shoot.

Anyone from Red Bull wanna hire us for a shoot? ;-)



This last triptych is actually the first one I made for Tiara, and is of my favorites. Looks like she's leaping up to slice her enemy in half.

Cool shots by accident

This is from Sunday's photoshoot with Tiara. Lighting was an AB 800 with a beauty dish gelled with an orange gel and a 1/8 CTO gel. My Canon 5D was custom white balanced through the gel before the gel went on the dish.

I was mostly set on 1/250 @ f8 during the shoot, but at one point I accidentally switched the camera to Bulb mode while continuing to shoot. Bulb mode on the camera keeps the shutter open until you let go of the shutter button. This image was exposed for about 1 second,so the background blurs from the motion of the camera. The reason the model is sharp in spite of the camera movement is because the flash fired right before the shutter closed, freezing the action. It's kind of a nice effect, and something that I think I'll experiment with more on future shoots.