Last Saturday I spent most of the day at photoshoots that involved 3 models in 3 set ups and came away with only two images. Now it wasn’t a total failure caused by gear failure. Rather I was acting as an assistant and the shoot was being conducted by Sharyn Reeve (www.bySharyn.com).

Sharyn is a very talented Wellington photographer and Photoshop wiz. We have done a few shoots together one of which she was brave enough to be my model.

Now anyone who knows me, knows that I have been shooting for a number of years, and have a reasonable portfolio of images. So they may be wondering why I was assisting on a shoot, when that is often synonymous with students. Put simply to learn and also because I enjoy shoots.

You don’t always need to be behind the camera to learn at a shoot. In some ways it is often easier to learn if you are not behind it because generally when you are there you are concentrating on getting the shot. What I tend to learn most from Sharyn is posing techniques, and more importantly the instructions to get particular facial expressions. What I hope I am able to give back to her to suggestions on light setups and poses. Sharyn is also not one of those photographers who will not take on board any suggestions (unlike other photographers that I will not name).

It was a good opportunity to also test out some new gear that we had purchased recently. On Saturday Sharyn had a new 150cm Octobox Softbox and I had a new lighting boom. We were both surprized that we could use a speedlight inside of the octobox after a studio strobe decided to play up. The boom proved really useful when Sharyn wanted an hair light that was lower than the model rather than having it angled down. It is also a good opportunity to double up our gear to produce better results and also the extra pair of hands come in handy with setting light modifiers.

I will leave Sharyn to actually blog the details of the shoot on her page at http://photos.bysharyn.com/blog.