A friend of mine who is a make up artist got hired for a job around my area(from Charlotte, NC) and she hit me up to give me a heads up. This girl knows what she is doing so I definitely did not hesitate to collab with her.
So..
Candace wanted to use an octopus in a picture which I thought was a pretty rad idea. I knew I wanted a headshot immediately but more importantly I wanted really good eye make up (elizabeth tolley ftw) and it on her face somehow to make it interesting and gross.
Now the lighting.. I never tried a shot like this and I wanted to approach it differently JUST to see what the results could look like. First I tried 3 lights. A bare abr800, 2 sb800's with umbrellas for fill in specific areas. I was going to use the ringflash to light up her face DECENTLY and have the umbrellas fill in shadows a LITTLE and mostly bring out the pattern on the background. Turns out the background was a little too dark in color and sb800's with umbrellas couldn't really get the job done at F/11 so scratch that idea. I would have to bump up my ISO to have the sb's do anything significant so SCRATCH that idea. You'll notice how I totally didnt even use the background, sigh.. waste of 5 bucks!. Then I tried an ab1600 boom with a beauty dish with the sb800's EHHHHH nope. the bam, abr800 on a boom with the 56" moon unit to get the job done. nice even light and strong enough to get what I needed. I dont have a large softbox YET for my ab1600 but I will shortly.. anyways heres the shot.
Next we have Rachel.. this wardrobe was picked out by Elizabeth, so thank you Liz!
Now for this shot we did in my house.. well my parents house.. anyways. We have these cool columns in the living room and I love the color of the hardwood floors and the white paint on everything. I KNOW the background doesn't fit the wardrobe but thats what I wanted. The colors on her outfit would stand out even more and also show a weird contrast of colors overall. Anyways I dont think I worded that very well but this isn't english so whatever. I originally took exposure of the frame without her (I had my camera on a tripod the whole time) so I could get a good exposure of the ambient since I would be working with a super high f/stop. BUT I ended up dragging my shutter to about 25th of a second to get the chandelier looking KIND of cool, and the background just natural overall. I used an ab1600 with a beauty dish boomed as my main. I like the BD because it really doesnt spill light all over the place so the background usually remains NATURAL. Dont really know how else to put that but anyways. I then place an sb800 on the ground and layed an umbrella over it to fill in some shadows too. I think I was working with a pretty high fstop, probably f/10 or little more. Anyways, I photoshopped to the max on these but I am happy overall.
Next we have the headshot. I used 3 lights. 1 sb800 with an HONL gride on it behind her, 1 sb800 up high through an umbrella for hair light and a bare abr800 for the main light. The colors of the wall and stuff was all photoshopped to get that amber sepia look which I dig ALOT. I really like these shots cause the makeup is just INSANE
click all images to see bigger on my FLICKR!!!
