Finding The Light - Christmas Day Photoshoot with Kayo in Tokyo

One of the most valuable lessons I learned in photography came from Master Photographer Irvin Yamada, who told me to "learn to see the light".  If you look carefully, you can find amazing natural light for your subjects.  Even in the middle of a crowded city like Tokyo.

Recently I had the good fortune of working again with one of my favorite models in Japan - the always amazing Kayo. I first met Kayo-san years ago through Model Mayhem and every time we collaborate on a shoot, it's always a lot of fun.  Though this was sort of a last minute impromptu shoot, we were able to create some great images in a short amount of time with very minimal gear.

The nice thing about shooting in Tokyo in December when the sun is low in the sky is that there are lots of pools of reflected light coming from the low sunlight bouncing off of the many windows and glass walls of the buildings around you.  By simply walking around, you can find lots of places where you can get both a front light and back light. Then all you need to do is put your subject in that spot.

These were all shot in a park next to our hotel - no need for a reflector or even fill flash. Pretty much everything was shot with the sun behind the model and the reflection from a nearby window filling in the front.

Everything was shot on a Sony a7ii with either the 55mm f1.8 Zeiss lens or the Sony 70-200 f4 G lens.

At one point we did get stopped by a security patrolman who informed us that doing a photoshoot in this park without a permit was not allowed, so we moved to a spot on a bridge just outside the park to continue our shoot.

The 55mm f1.8 Zeiss was a lens that I had just picked up on this trip and I really liked how it looked shooting wide open.

It was a bit chilly that day, so we wrapped after a few more images and headed back indoors.

I'm really glad that I had the chance to work with Kayo-san after such a long time. Not only did I get to hang out with an old friend, it also gave me the chance to test out a new lens and get more practice in "Seeing the light".

2014 Glamour, Beauty & The Nude Photography Workshop - Glamour Video Shoot with Elizabeth

The private shoot day is always the highlight of Rolando's workshops as you have the opportunity to collaborate with each individual model and work on all sorts of ideas. For the private shoot with Elizabeth (Invy Rose), we both agreed to focus on just creating a single video rather than a series of photos.  Wished I could have done both, but I only have two hands.

We unfortunately did not have Andrew as an assistant this year, so a lot of the setups that I had originally planned on shooting had to be simplified so that it could be done with a single person crew.

I also had to keep track of time so that I did not go over each models' scheduled session, which would have affected their session times with the other workshop participants. Since session time also has to account for travel to and from locations, it further limits the amount of shooting time you actually have. Thankfully Elizabeth and I already had a few shots completed from the previous day of shooting, so we were able to resume right where we left off.

This time we got a very early start, returning to Ironwood Beach first thing in the morning to shoot the rest of the footage we would need for the video.  All of the footage was shot with the Sony DSC-RX10, on a Manfrotto tripod & Edelkrone SliderPlus.

We started shooting in the same spot and same direction we had shot previously, but it wasn't until we flipped the setup around 180 degrees and shot with the sun behind Liz that the footage really started to rock.

Backlight from the sun and reflected light from the sand in front of her looked so amazing that I had to stop and take a few stills with the 5DmkIII.

Liz was simply stunning in front of the camera, and very determined to help me make the shoot a success.  Even when the odd tourist would walk by during our shoot, she told me to continue shooting until we got what we needed.

There were a lot things we shot that day that I really wanted to have stills of as well, but because of the limited amount of time we had and the fact that this was a single person crew, we had to prioritize getting just video footage. We simply just did not have the time or the crew to set up additional lighting and reflectors to really get great stills.

My apologies for the low quality of the screen grabs. Will probably be upgrading to 4K video in the near future to get higher quality stills from the video.

Editing in FCPX, once I had found and licensed the right music through Songfreedom.com, the piece started coming together surprisingly quick. The final version became one of my favorites of this year.


Invy Rose from Todd Mizomi on Vimeo.

See more of model Invy Rose's work by visiting her page on Facebook. To learn more about how you can sign up for future Beauty Glamour and the Nude workshops by Rolando Gomez, visit rolandogomez.net.

Experiences at the Rolando Gomez 2014 Glamour, Beauty & The Nude Photography Workshop - Day 1

This year marked the 3rd time that photographer Rolando Gomez hosted his Glamour, Beauty & The Nude Photography Workshop in Maui, Hawaii.   Stephanie Dawn was our awesome makeup artist again this year and we had four amazing models to work with - Elizabeth, Brittany, Heather, and Ashley.

Remarkably, I did not run into any major mishaps this time like I did last year, like killing my 85mm f1.2L lens  or my wardrobe malfunction, so I was pretty happy about that.

The morning of our first day of shooting was at Kepaniwai Park in Iao Valley.  I shot with Heather in the Japanese garden area of the park.

We positioned our model across the pond in the shade of a tree.

For lighting we used 2 Cheetahstand V850 strobes in a Lastolite Ezybox II Softbox which we set up next to the camera position on the opposite side of the pond, about 15-20 feet away. Because of the distance, the front face of the soft box was removed and both strobes were set to full power.

Most of the images below were shot using a Sony DSC-RX10 which can reliably flash sync up to about 1/1000 without the use of a High Speed Sync mode.  This made it possible to keep detail in the bright sunlit area behind the model for this shot.

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

The light weight of the RX10 also made it possible to get angles that would normally have been difficult to shoot with a regular DSLR.

Sony DSC-RX10 24-200mm f2.8 iso 400 1/1000 @ f2.8

In the shot above, in order to get the model's reflection in the water framed between the foreground plants, the camera was handheld at edge of the pond one-handed just barely above the surface of the water.

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

The second setup was underneath another tree, next to a stone lantern.  Once again the RX10's ability to flash sync at 1/1000 with a manual strobe without losing much flash power made it possible to use flash to illuminate the model while still holding detail in the sunlit areas behind her.

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

Surrounding the Japanese garden was a low rock wall.  Rolando pointed out that the wall could be used as a leading line in the composition of a photograph.  He directed Heather to stand on the wall next to a tree. The light was positioned on the outside of the wall to camera left.  After Rolando took his shots, I shot a few frames to see what he saw.  

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

You know, I've been to this park many times before and always stepped over this wall to get to the garden without ever giving it a second thought.  It never occurred to me before to think of it in the way that Rolando explained.  

This is one of the reasons why I keep attending his Maui workshops - I  always learning something new. :-)

I also grabbed a few closeups of Heather before we left the park.  Switched back to using the 5DmkIII and the 85mm f1.2L to get a shallower depth of field than the RX10.

Canon 5dmkIII 85mm f1.2L II iso 200 1/250 @ f1.2

That afternoon the group met up in the lobby of the resort in Kaanapali where the workshop was based at so that we could shoot at sunset on the beach.

While we were waiting for the sun to get lower in the sky before shooting the sunset, I decided to look around to see if there was some good light to shoot in while we were waiting.  The wall outside the lobby made for a nice giant natural reflector.

I asked Brittany to stand in the shaded area on the pathway with her back to the sun and we got some pretty nice results. Used the Canon 5DmkIII and 85mm f1.2 lens to throw the background out of focus.

Canon 5dmkIII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/8000 @f1.2

There was a nice breeze channeling through the walkway which made for some nice motion in her hair.

Canon 5dmkIII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/2500 @f2.5

We also experimented with putting objects in the foreground to add more depth to the image.

Canon 5dmkIII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/2500 @f2.5

Found another spot in front of the resort's entrance, on the opposite side of the main lobby. Since this area was totally in shade, we used 2 Cheetahstand V850 strobes in a Lastolite Ezybox II Softbox to add some direction to the light and give some sparkle in her eyes.

Canon 5dmkIII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/160 @f1.2

Down on the beach at sunset, we used the same lighting setup for most of our sunset shots.

Sony DSC-RX10 24-200mm f2.8 iso 80 1/320 @ f4

Never realized how hard it is to capture a wave splash with all four models engaging the camera especially when there are several other shooters all trying to get the same shot at the same time.  ;-)

Sony DSC-RX10 24-200mm f2.8 iso 400 1/500 @ f4

For this final shot of the day, we were squeezing the last bit of light out of the sky.  This was long after the sun had gone down behind the horizon.  Light was positioned just out of frame to camera right, feathered off just a bit.

Sony DSC-RX10 24-200mm f2.8 iso 800 1/20 @ f4

Could have played around more with dragging the shutter to see how much more we could push it, but it was time for dinner.

Stay tuned for Part Two - the Hana waterfall or "How to totally beat yourself into a pulp just to get one shot".

Mai Mao Photoshoot in Makena

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 85mm f1.2L II iso100 1/1000@f1.8

One of the things I've had on the back burner for a while is the creation of a 写真集 (shashinshū), or Japanese photo-book. I've been continually postponing working on this project mainly for two reasons - the cost of producing a high quality book and the difficulty in finding the right model.  It was only late last year, after a fellow photographer showed me a book he had done through MyPublisher, that I decided to finally start seriously working on making the photo-book.

Although I've attended a few glamour nude workshops in the past, I haven't had that much actual real world experience with shooting nudes.  Therefore for this project I wanted to sort of step out of my comfort zone this time and challenge myself to create a book that mixed in a variety of images - lifestyle, swimwear, lingerie, & nude/implied nude.

To do so meant finding a model that was both comfortable shooting nudes, and who I could rely on for coming up with a variety of poses on her own with little direction from me.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 85mm f1.2L II iso200 1/2000@f1.8

I came across a travel notice on Model Mayhem which put me in contact with Mai Mao, a model who happened to be vacationing in Maui for a few days in December.  Luckily our schedules worked out and I was able to book her for this project.

Normally I prefer to work with a team, especially if the shoot involves partial or full nudity.  Because this shoot was put together on a relatively short notice however, I wasn't able to get a makeup artist and assistant this time.  Flying solo on this one meant keeping the lighting gear relatively small and quick to setup and break down.

We started in the morning on North Maluaka Beach in Makena, getting in a few lifestyle and swimwear shots. I kept her back to the sun and shot most of these with natural light.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 85mm f1.2L II iso200 1/800@f2.8

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 70-200mm f2.8L IS II iso100 1/640@f2.8

It would have been nice to get a few implied nudes on the beach, but since there were several tourists nearby, we chose not to take that chance.  Instead, I had her drop the shoulder straps of her swimsuit  top and just framed the shot in tight.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 85mm f1.8 iso400 1/60@f5.6

To add a little highlight to her hair, I positioned a 580EX with a CTO gel on a light stand behind her.

While we were shooting, Mai pointed out an aerial camera drone flying overhead. Whoever the pilot was seemed to be VERY interested in what we were doing, as the drone circled over our location a few times including once when the model was changing outfits.

As I didn't have anything to take down the drone with at the time (I had left my spare rocket launcher at home since the darn things are just too big to fit into camera bags these days), we cut our beach session short and headed to the model's hotel room to continue the shoot.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 85mm f1.2L II iso200 1/200@f2.8

This was actually the first time I've shot in a hotel room.  For weddings I've shot bridal preps in hotel rooms before, but lighting and shooting a glamour session was a different animal.  Mainly because there's not a whole lot of room to set up  bunch of light stands and soft boxes.

We made use of the existing light as much as possible.  The morning light coming in from the balcony acted as our main light for most of the shots.  For backlighting, we used a Westcott Apollo Strip Softbox with a Yongnuo 560III flash triggered with the YN-603 radio triggers.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 85mm f1.8 iso200 1/200@f2.8

The same Westcott Apollo Strip Softbox setup was used here on the bed for fill lighting. The main light was still the window light.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 85mm f1.8 iso800 1/100@f2.8

Tulle netting was used to wrap the model for a few shots.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 50mm f1.4 iso400 1/160@f2.8

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 85mm f1.8 iso400 1/160@f2.8

We also shot in the opposite direction, switching to the Westcott Apollo Orb softbox as the main and the window light as her backlight.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 50mm f1.4 iso800 1/160@f3.2

At the end of the session, I reviewed the shots we had and figured that I had about 75% of the images needed for the planned layout of the book.  Mai agreed to a second shorter session on another day to help me get the rest of the images I would need.

Our second shoot took place at a different hotel.  Since this room did not have as much natural window light as the previous one, we used two Yongnuo 560 III flashes, one in the Westcott Apollo Orb for the main light, and one in the Westcott Apollo Strip for back/hairlight.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 24-70mm f2.8L iso400 1/80@f5.6

For this hallway shot, the Apollo Orb was to camera right as the main light. At first, I put the 2nd flash without a soft box back up against the door to rim light the model, but it looked too unnatural.  I ended up putting the strip soft box back on the flash and positioning it in the bathroom off to the left of the hallway behind the model. It took a few tries of moving the  2nd light back far enough into the bathroom so that the light would not flare back into the camera lens but still rim light the model.

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 24-70mm f2.8L iso400 1/160@f5.6

Canon EOS 5Dmk II 24-70mm f2.8L iso400 1/160@f5.6

Overall the final printed book came out pretty good (for a first attempt). Sent a copy to Mai as well.

I wish MyPublisher offered different formats of books, like a portrait oriented one instead of the landscape oriented version you see above.  Will keep researching for the next book project.