Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Maui Photoshoot with actress/filmmaker Paige Lauren Billiot

Canon 5DmkII 85mm f1.2L II iso 200 1/800 @ f2.0

Paige Lauren Billiot is an accomplished actress/filmmaker/writer that I was fortunate enough to work with on a short morning photoshoot session on the beach in Wailea.


We were lucky enough to have a full crew on this shoot, thanks to her family whom she drafted who were kind enough to volunteer to assist us with the shoot.  It's always great to have a lot of assistants on a shoot as it makes things go much smoother.


Since we had multiple assistants, we were able to use two California Sunbounce reflectors for most of the day's lighting - a silver/white Sunbounce Pro for the main light and a silver/white Sunbounce mini for edge lighting.

I really need to get around to picking up a white/gold zebra replacement fabric for the Sunbounces as I've been told it can be easier on the subject's eyes than the silver fabric.

Canon 5DmkII 85mm f1.2L II iso 200 1/1200 @ f2.0

But thankfully, Paige was a good sport about it and was able to deal with the silver reflectors.

Having multiple assistants holding the Sunbounce reflectors came in handy for shots like the one below.  This is in full bright sun, with one reflector used to put our model in shadow and the other used to add direction to the light.

Canon 5DmkII 85mm f1.2L II iso 200 1/1600 @ f2.0

Found a spot under the shade of some trees to do some swimsuit shots.  Paige had no problem climbing up trees to get the angles I was looking for.

 Canon 5DmkII 85mm f1.2L II iso 200 1/500 @ f2.8

  Canon 5DmkII 85mm f1.2L II iso 200 1/1600 @ f2.0

We also did a few impromptu "Trash the Dress"- style shots down in the water.  Switched to the Sony RX-10 camera to utilize the higher flash sync speed and used 4 Yongnuo 560 III flashes for fill lighting.


Sony DSC-RX10 24-200mm f2.8 iso 100 1/1000@f2.8

 I thought Paige pulled off the look pretty well.  It's not easy to pose in the water in the hot sun with dozens of other people playing on the beach nearby. 

Not kidding - there were people like right next to us, just out of the camera view. ;-)

Sony DSC-RX10 24-200mm f2.8 iso 100 1/1000@f2.8

In spite of the hot summer sun and the crowded beach, It was a lot of fun working with such a talented actress. I'm looking forward to working with her again in the future.

Click on the link to view a trailer for her upcoming short film Alex.



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