Seniors 2012 - Zak

I got a call earlier this week asking to do senior portraits for a kid named Zak.  Definitely psyched for it because, when I was talking to his mom she said he skateboards and shooting at a skate park would be super fun.  Of course, the weather today turned out terrible - very windy and with freezing rain.  So that part is postponed to next weekend, but today we still got some awesome studio shots!

This was my lighting set up for the day.  The hair light is an Alien Bee B400, the umbrella and softbox have B800s.  This was also my first shoot using my new background, so that was pretty exciting!  After years of saying "these paper backdrops are in terrible shape, I should buy new ones" I finally invested in black and white muslin backdrops.  MUCH nicer.

At ImagingUSA this year, I went to a lighting seminar from Oscar Lozoya, who is amazing.  He really had me excited about lighting so I was determined to make something nice today.  Quite pleased with how it turned out - you can see the separation between the background and Zak's dark hair, the highlights on his shirt aren't blown out and there's great texture.  The softbox was up higher (and not tilted down) in this photo than in the example because he's standing, but basically the same setup.

Backlit by the softbox.  It makes a great white background!

This shows the lighting set-up from the example.  Because he's a skateboarder and we couldn't go outside, we still wanted to include his favorite board in the studio shots.

There's a brick wall in The Fallout Shelter where I was shooting, so had Zak grab his board and take a few shots over there.  I showed him this on the back of the camera and he said he really liked the lighting and how the skateboard is visible in the background.  Yay, I love making the client happy!!

Seniors 2012 - Lecksi

Lecksi bowls with my brother on the Hopewell High School team, so when I'm at the bowling alley I'll talk to her and the other high school kids.  One day I basically just said "you're a senior, right?  I'm gonna do your pictures."  She said "ok" and so we took senior portraits.  Had my studio set up down in The Fallout Shelter, which works out quite well.

I kept telling Lecksi "don't look so scared!" and she would say "I'm not!" and laugh and I would get a good shot.  It was fun.  After the studio shots, we went to Hopewell Park, which is close by.  The shirt she was wearing kind of matched the fall leaves, something I thought was really cool!  The 50mm f2 prime lens kept the background from being too overbearing like her shirt though, and I really like the resulting images.