First Las Vegas Photoshoot with Natasha Tyler

My apologies to those of you who actually take the time to read this blog.  I've been busy with other commitments and have not been able to keep up with the BTS postings of our shoots.  Have a bunch of them that I'm working on and I will get them up online as time permits.

Went to the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) trade show a while back and since both the Star Trek Experience is no longer there and I'm not into drinking or gambling, I had some free time to schedule a couple of photoshoots and make some new contacts in Las Vegas.  The first of our two shoots was with Natasha, a model I met through Model Mayhem.

For this shoot we were working out of a TINY hotel room, so it was a challenge to try to find angles that would look good. Decided to use mostly prime lenses and shoot wide open to throw the background out of focus as much as possible. This entire shoot was done with the Sony a6000 with 3 lenses - the 35mm f1.8 OSS, 50mm f1.8 OSS and the PZ18-105mm F4 G OSS lens.

Our first set was a simple headshot next to a window. We improvised a reflector by holding up a white shoot thru umbrella right next to the model's face just out of the right side of the camera frame.

Not only was the room tiny, the furnishings were so old that they still had an old tube style television instead of a newer flat screen LCD or LED.  In this shot of Natasha in a black evening dress we hid that by carefully positioning the camera angle so that we could hide it behind her.

The lighting for this shoot was mostly natural window light mixed with a Cheetahstand (Godox) CL360 with a white mushroom adapter firing into the ceiling next to the camera position.

A Cheetahstand (Godox)V850 in a Westcott Apollo Strip was used to add edge lighting to the model.

The same lighting setup was used in this shot of Natasha reclining on the bed in her second evening dress.

Natasha was as great model to work with.  Was even up for having some fun with a "geek glamour" type shot. Again we used the camera position to hide unwanted elements in the background.  Sometimes it came down to where if either she or the camera moved even an inch to either side, we'd see stuff in the background.  Lots of trial and error on this shoot.

To close this shoot, Natasha changed into a white mens shirt and we had her recline on the bed for a few implied shots.  Would have liked to have gotten a higher vantage point for the camera, but the low ceiling didn't give us enough clearance to frame her properly.

All in all it was a lot of fun for my first official photoshoot in Las Vegas. A big Mahalo to Natasha for being such a great subject to photograph!