Sina

Last night I got to play the homestudio-game again with gorgeous Sina. I was a little out of ideas, but thankfully Sina had the idea to google reference photos. We ended up using photos of Brody Dalle for inspiration and this is what came out.

Tired little assistants, Nemo and Nasu.

EDIT// A second version of one of the above:

Sanni & Masi

I had Sanni come over yesterday with her dog, Masi, and I got to practice this "home studio" lighting stuff some more. I have to say, I did learn a lot with not having to be both the photographer and the model. Lighting is still hard and there are some photos in this set, that don't have it perfectly right, but I did my best. In the future, I should also remember to keep a brighter light on while shooting, so the models' pupils won't be the size of a plate in the pictures. ;) The Canon EOS Utility software turned out to be really useful as Sanni got to view the photos with me on my coputer display as I took them. We had loads of fun, and even though I still have tons more to learn even with the basics, I think these turned out really good. Sanni and Masi were awesome models and I'm sure we'll be doing more photo shoots in the future. :)

Anyways, enjoy and let me know what you think! 

First we just took some basic headshots.

And then Masi took the stage.
I think this is my favorite of all of these. 

I used Sanni also as a canvas as I painted her face. 

And last but not least, Masi took the stage all for himself.

Practice practice practice

Cold day

I have Sina coming over again on Sunday. She has agreed to be one of my (so far) two practice models as I try to learn shooting with my flash and lighting people properly. I figured out some stuff yesterday (after quite a bit of frustration and tips from Heidi) and had another go today. I want everything to be as clear as possible on Sunday so that things won't go to hell before I get a few decent shots of Sina. She'll be bringing her two lovely amstaffs, so we have doggy portraits coming up too. :)

To be continued...

Lighting practice

I finally have everything I need to use my flash off-camera, and today I went and bought a 5-in-1 reflector/diffuser too. I decided to test out my little "home studio" and so I did. I held the diffuser in my left hand in front of the flash and I had the removable reflector skin (silver) hung on my right side. I gotta come up some piece of cardboard or something to put inside the reflector skin so I can use both the reflector and the diffuser at the same time more easily. The camera settings were the following: ISO100, f/11, 1/200s. 

I can't wait to get someone else in front of the camera so I can play more with the flash. It was kind of tricky holding the diffuser in one hand and the remote in the other and try to have my shoulders in a relatively natural position.