16 Oct 09: Studio #4: Shoot with a professional model

Andy arranged for us to do a studio shoot today with a professional model, Marysia.  This was a chance for us to start learning to direct a shoot, to practice again what we had learnt about the use of ambient light and to start to make use of different coloured reflectors to direct the light. Some of my favourite shots from the day are set out below. 

In our first week at college we went to the National Media Museum in Bradford (http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/) to see an exhibition of work by Don McCullin.  It was his amazing portraits that made me see the value of shooting in black and white.  Some of his images - such as this one of Snowy -

would have been far less effective in colour.  So I also converted my images to black & white using Lightroom 2 and I have to say I prefer the black & white images.

f/5.6 1/60 sec ISO 200

f/4.5 1/30 sec ISO 400

f/5.0 1/30 sec ISO 400

f/5.6 1/60 sec ISO 200

This is my favourite and reminded me of 1960's images of Twiggy:

(from the Daily Mail)

Using a gold reflector to illuminate Maryisa's face and remove shadows gave the best results.  Marysia had great bone structure and was very photogenic, but with a combination of lighting and canera angle it was still possibe to take a very unflattering shot - this one looks like a police mug shot!