Studio / Beach shoot with Joy and Anne

Had the chance to work with model Joy a few weekends ago.  Makeup artist Kahulani did the makeup for her as well as her friend Anne.  We did some shooting in studio, then headed out to Wailea to catch the sunset on the beach.  Quddus Ajimine was our assistant.

 Joy works out a lot and one of her requests was to do shots that highlighted her physique.

We shot this in a storage room next to the studio.  Thanks to a tip I learned from fellow photographer Chaz of After6Media, we used Pam Olive Oil spray to give Joy's body a "wet look". 

We used a Paul Buff Alien Bee AB800 with a 22" beauty dish for the main light, and a Nikon SB26 with a 1/4 CTO gel for the edge light.  It took a couple of tries to get the SB26 to highlight just the model and not give us a reflection off the back wall.  We ended up zooming the flash head to the max and flagging it off from the wall.

For this shot of Anne, we used 3 AB800s.  The main light was modified with a large softbox, the rimlight with a small strip softbox, and we had one light shooting through the panels in the back.

My Vagabond battery was still out for repair during this shoot, so I rented a 1000 watt Yamaha generator from a local rental house.  We took this with us when we went to the beach in Wailea.  Worked out pretty well, so I'm thinking of picking one up in the near future.  Nice to have as a backup, plus you can run the modeling lights of the AB800 from it (something you're not supposed to do when using the Vagabond battery).

For the first hour before sunset however, we did most of the shots using nothing but Quddus holding a California Sunbounce Pro silver reflector to fill in the shadows.

Because this reflector is so huge, it really throws a LOT of light where you want it.  I shot most of these on Aperture Priority mode on a Canon 1d mkII with a 70-200mm f2.8L lens.

When we got near sunset time, we broke out an AB800 and a 5ft PhotoFlex Octodome (with the interior configured to all gold panels) and plugged them into the generator.  Since we were working pretty close to the water, a big safety precaution we took was to plug in a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI) between the generator and extension cord.

A GFCI monitors the current flowing through it.  If there is even a slight change (such as if a wave were to wash over the connected power cords, it quickly cuts off the power.  The end result is that you don't electrocute yourself (although you may receive a painful shock).  You can find GFCIs at any hardware store or Home Depot (The Vagabond battery packs have GFCIs already incorporated into them).

Electrical shocks are NOT fun - I know this from firsthand experience.  I try to always use a GFCI when working with strobes on location.

For the shots with the Octodome, I had the camera set to iso 100, 1/250 at f11 and kept experimenting with different shutter speeds to change the exposure of the background.

This was a fun shoot to do.  Now that I've got my Vagabond battery back from repair, going to have to test it out on a few shoots.  Definitely going to look into getting a generator though one of these days. :-)

Octodome shoot part 2 - Sunset shoot with Crystal

 Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L lens iso 100 1/250@ f8

After seeing the results photographer Aaron Riveroll gets with his Octodome, I was anxious to try it out on location.

This time I was lucky enough to have two assistants - Ronald and Quddus, and this made the shoot so much easier. (Thanks you guys!)

For this photoshoot I worked with model Crystal Gregg from Model Mayhem.  This was a really fun shoot.  Not only is Crystal a great model to work with, she also had her family along to provide support and humor.  All we were missing was a barbeque and a cooler full of drinks.
(of course, if we DID have all that, we probably wouldn't have ended up with as many shots as we did.) ;-)

We started at Polo Beach with several outfits, shooting around the park area. Since I had been having issues with my Vagabond battery pack, I chose to hold off on using the Octodome until we got to the beach.  We used 2 silver California Sunbounce reflectors (medium and pro sizes) for our initial lighting setup.

Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L lens iso 100  1/500@ f2.8

This was shot with just natural overcast light and Ronald holding the silver medium Sunbounce to camera left.

Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L lens iso 100 1/500@ f2.8

When Quddus arrived, we assembled the larger Sunbounce Pro and used both reflectors to Light Crystal.  Quddus is holding the Sunbounce Pro to camera left to act as her main light.  The natural sunlight acts as a rim light on her legs, right arm and hair.  Ronald is standing behind the tree with the medium Sunbounce to throw additional sunlight into the back of Crystal's hair and her left arm.

I also wanted to experiment with creating sunset light.  While Crystal posed against a shaded wall, I had Quddus block off the stray sunlight with the Sunbounce.  I then had Ronald hold an SB26 with a CTO gel aimed at Crystal and I fired off a few frames.  Wasn't quite satisfied with the look, so I had Ronald turn the flash toward the Sunbounce and shot a few frames with the SB26 bouncing into the reflector to get this shot.

Canon 1DmkII 85mm f1.8 lens iso 100 1/250@ f2.8

We then headed to the road to a nearby beach (Polo Beach was a little too crowded for us).  Thanks to Quddus and Ronald, we had the Octodome set up on an AB 800 in just a few minutes.

There are 4 reversible gold/silver panels in the interior of the Octodome which can be setup to give different looks.  Since we were shooting at sunset, we used 2 gold and 2 silver panels to warm up the light from the Octodome.

 Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L lens iso 100 1/250@ f8

For this full length shot, the Octodome is off to camera right and the sunset acts as the rim light.

Surprisingly, the Vagabond battery pack held up through the entire shoot this time.

I also tried out the Canon 7D on this shoot for some of the wider shots.

 Canon 7D 24-70mm f2.8L lens iso 200 1/160@ f8

 I can see why photographer Aaron Riveroll uses the Octodome on location. The look from this light modifier is really sweet!

Shooting with the Photoflex 5 ft Octodome

Finally got a chance to use my new 5 ft Photoflex Octodome on some photoshoots.  This studio shoot was done with 3 models - Lia, Heidi and Uilani.  Makeup and hair was done by Kahulani and we were again assisted by Quddus Ajimine.

I can literally stand directly in front of this softbox when shooting the model. It's gianormous. And this is only their medium sized Octodome. They come in small 3', medium 5' and freaking large 7' (you know, in case you ever need to light Godzilla someday).

I really like the way the light from the AB800 in the Octodome wraps around Lia. Silver Photoflex Litepanel for fill.

We were kinda pressed for time that day, since we had 3 models doing headshots in studio at the same time, so I didn't get to do much variation in the lighting.  I did try a slightly different setup for Heidi below, where I switched to the beauty dish.  I also had Quddus hold up a Lastolite Trigrip Diffuser in front of the beauty dish to further soften the light on Heidi.

 For Uilani, I switched back to the Octodome and also added a silver litepanel for fill, another AB800 with a strip softbox for the back light and a round silver reflector on the floor in front of her.

 What's really nice about the Octodome is that because of the size, it's really good for lighting groups.

For this last shot of the three models together, the Octodome is boomed above center , with 2 AB800s with red and blue gels behind for rim lighting.