As mentioned in the previous post, my last studio/pool session of the summer was with Tanisha. She was off Indian descent and had a fabulous rich skin colour. I therefore chose a blue satin backdrop as I knew this would look great in the images.
We started in the studio with a range of poses. We also included a couple of outfit changes. This helped her and me get comfortable shooting together. Tanisha was a natural and this process ran extremely smoothly.
For my lighting I used two lights. My Godox AD300 was the main light which was positioned camera left in a 65cm octabox. My Godox V1 speedlight acted as a second light. It was in a 7 inch reflector and was positioned camera left and aimed at the backdrop. This was simply to provide a little separation and to push the lustre of the backdrop.
I had acquired a very funky phone from an op shop. I thought it was a great opportunity to use that. Tanisha had quite a bit of fun with her and it showed in the images.
All of the shots were taken on my Nikon Z6ii at f5 1/100s ISO100. These are not my usual settings for studio work. However, they were sufficient to gain full control over the ambient light.
As with other shoots we included the selfie image with the old camera.
We also brought in a silk veil as I knew that Tanisha would rock the lock with her big brown eyes.
I really liked how these images turned out. In the next post we head out to the pool.
There is a lot to be said about the use of repetition to improve your photography. I certainly found that as I was shooting the pool series early 2023. Each shoot presented new challenges that I would then take into the next one. This was a novel experience given that normally my shoots a one off events.
My final shoot of the summer was with Tanisha. She had answered the casting call I placed back in December. We were unable to shoot until mid-February. I booked the shoot for the evening based on previous experience. This timing ensured I would not be fighting bright overhead light.
The previous shoot with Morgane occurred at roughly the same time. It showed me that I could not rely completely on natural light. Therefore I made the decision that I was going to overpower it.
As I have mentioned before, shoots in pools with sun-heated water have to be done quickly. You cannot spend time playing with the lights while the model is in the water. The answer was to set everything up before the model arrived. That way I could make sure that everything was as I wanted it.
As shown in the image the start of the post I set up my AD600 at the rear of the pool shooting into a 1.5m octabox. The camera was positioned on a boom over the over the pool and triggered from an app on my iPad.
A test shot at f8 1/160s ISO200 proved that I was removing most of the ambient light from the screen. I set the power level of the light in the mid-range and took another shot. This provided enough light on the water but also the softbox reflected in it. I moved the light back and adjusted its power level to compensate.
Once I got the reflection only appearing in a small point of the pool, I was happy. I knew that I could fix this easily in post. There was still a sky reflection in the water. I knew this would go away once the flowers were added.
This test, however, did not show how the light would affect a model. I pulled out my handy mannequin. Then, I placed her in the pool. Being plastic she actually floated which meant it was not an exact replication of a human but it was close.
I was now confident that the set up was in place and ready for Tanisha.
I mentioned in my post about her pool shoot that Megan was a photographer as well as a model. In that capacity she would organise meetup for Wellington photographers which she would model.
f4 200mm 1/640s ISO100
One such shoot took part in princess Bay which is on the south coast of Wellington. Now shooting outside in Wellington can be fraught with difficulty unless you get a really good day. Fortunately this was one of them. The weather was really nice and the beach was packed.
We started the shoot around 6:30pm in the evening and went through to 8 pm. This let us go into golden light as you can see in the first image in this post.
As I did not know in advance what I could be facing I packed a very full camera bag. That included my 50mm f1.4, 24-70 f4 and 70-200mm f2.8. The last lens is one of my favourites especially shooting in group environments. When I am not directing the Model I can stand back and shoot more candid images.
f5 56mm 1/250s ISO100
I have stated before that I love reflections. The rocks gave me the perfect opportunity to try to achieve some.
We each took turns posing Morgane on the rocks and then with props. She then went into the water and I tried to get some some shots with action.
f8 200mm 1/60s ISO200
As this was an outdoor sheet I had the camera in aperture priority mode. As the light was somewhat contrast I had it said to spot meter so that I could ensure that I was getting the perfect exposure on Morgane’s skin.
It was a great evening and I was pleased with the results. As I am off to the one organising such events it was nice to be able to simply turn up and shoot.
This is the second post on my shoot with Dawn at Fort Balance. It includes all the shots taken outside under natural light. This was after we finished the original Catwoman in the headlights mentioned in the previous place.
We moved around the complex which gave us many options to shoot. It also gave Dawn the opportunity to really play into her character.
For these series of images I was using my Nikon Z6ii camera with the 24-70 f4 lens set at f4. It was in aperture priority mode as I was happy to let the camera control the shutter speed. The majority of them seem to be around 1/200s second. Towards the end of the shoot, I did have to push the ISO up to 400. Even then the final images were at 1/50s.
Despite the fact that the fort is nearly a kilometre up a hill it is amazing what people take up there. We found this couch and I just had to use it.
The fort contains many different opportunities for shooting such as ladders that enable you to shoot down from above.
The Walls also gave the opportunity for Dawn to behave like a cat. Anyone who has seen the original Batman series will know that the Catwoman character did do overemphasised cat behaviour.
Anyone who has a cat will know that they like to find comfy nooks in which to sleep. I spotted an alcove complete with a cushion. It was a no-brainer that we were going to use it. The lighting in this particular area was not the best but my camera easily handled it.
Dawn was a great model. She was really comfortable being in front of the Camera which made the whole process so much easier. It also meant that we got really great images from the session.
Finally when we got back to the car it was time for a selfie shot to add to the series
The 1960s when the original show screened was also the time of the rise of pop art. Therefore I thought of appropriate to create a version of my own. This went across really well when I posted it.
My second shoot in the 2023 Wellington Cosplay Photo Fest was with Dawn.
She was cosplaying Catwoman from the Batman series. Her costume was based on the original 1960’s television series. It was not based on the later movies.
For the shoot we chose Fort Balance which is an old World War 2 gun emplacement on the Miramar Peninsula. It is a favourite location for shooting. It has many great areas with a never-changing array of street art.
I am splitting the shoot into two post as the lighting for each was quite different.
For the initial shoot I had a concept of Catwoman being caught in the headlights of a police car. That meant that I wanted to have both blue and red lights illuminating the scene. Within the complex, there are a couple of rooms where there is next to no natural light. I knew they would be perfect for what I was wanting.
My camera was set at f8 1/200s and ISO100. This is my normal setting for studio work as it ensures full control of the light. Really given that I was in darkness anyway, I could have chosen different settings. But there is a little point in playing around when you know what works.
The original plan was to shoot using two speed lights at the same time. One would positioned camera left with a blue gel. The other would be positioned camera right covered with a red gel. This would have resulted in a wash of light.
The complex is on the top of the hill. It is just under a kilometre walk from where you can park the car. I decided not to carry all of the gear uphill. I chose what I thought I needed and left the remainder in the car. Unfortunately, when we went to set up the shoot, I realized the trigger for the second flash was in the car. It was not with us.
I decided not to waste time going back together. Instead, I repositioned the light. Then I took two shots, which I combined in Photoshop. This is not that difficult to do although I would have preferred to have shot in the field. It did require Dawn to replicate poses. Fortunately she was able to do this.
Apart from the mess up with the missing equipment, this part of the shoot went well. I was really pleased with the finished image.
Each February there is a weekend event organised called the Wellington Cosplay Photo Fest. Photographers and cosplayers from around New Zealand and Australia into the interest in attending the event a couple of months before. The organiser then matched photographers with cosplayers so that each photographer started off with two assignments. Once you have your allocation you arrange shoot times. You are also free to organise other shoots once you have completed your allocation.
2023 was the fourth year that the event had run and that I had taken apart. The 2022 festival was one of many that ended up being cancelled due to Covid so people will really looking forward to the this year’s event.
As the event coincided with a really busy time for me I only elected to photograph the two cosplayers that I have been assigned. I booked both shoots for the same day. I also decided that I would choose locations fairly close to each other to minimise travelling.
My first shoot was with Ann-Marie who was cosplaying a character from Japanese anime. The Japanese anime seems to be very popular especially with female cosplayers.
For the shoot I wanted something dramatic as a background so we chose the Massey Memorial, which is at the southern tip of the Miramar Peninsula. This is actually the mausoleum of the former Prime Minister of New Zealand William Massey and his wife. It is constructed a white marble and is quite impressive.
We started with some basic shots of Ann-Marie with the city in the background before then moving to a more complicated set up that I had in mind.
The rear of the memorial has a large curved wall with gaps in it. I thought this would be great to use in a composite by shooting Ann-Marie separately in each of the gaps and then bringing it together.
To achieve this the camera was placed on a tripod as this made merging the shots much easier later on. When we were shooting in daylight I wanted to have a pop obliged on Ann-Marie so I had a speed light in a small soft box. Ann-Marie had brought a friend to the shoot to help her with her costume and so she ended up being my portable light stand.
The images came out great and It was a simple matter of putting them into Photoshop and then using masking to create the image that I wanted.
I started the shoot using Aperture Priority with setting between f6 and f6.3. For the composite image I used f10 as I needed a decent depth of field given the curve in the structure. After I shot this, the camera struggled to give me the desired exposure. I switched to manual mode and used flash to highlight Ann-Marie against the background.
I shot from different angles so that the images did not look all the same. I had also shot sequences of Ann-Marie with the sword and so I created composite with these as well.
By chance while I was processing the images I came across a YouTube Club on how to create cartoons from images. Japanese anime started in comics I thought this was quite appropriate so I produced an image that she really liked.
Morgane and I spent about half an hour shooting around the garden. It was then time to head into the pool. Unlike the previous three pool shoots, Morgane had a new preference. She did not want to use sheers but rather preferred to be in a bikini and coverings.
As I mentioned in my previous post Morgane wanted to do her own editing of the photos. Therefore, several images on this page are straight out of the camera. They show the surroundings of the pool.
We started the shoot around 6:00pm in the evening. We did not have to worry about high overhead light. As the day was also reasonably warm we also had time so I positioned my Lumix G9 on the end of the boom. The image below shows how the camera is connected to the boom arm.
The actual connection is not designed for this purpose. Rather it is a bracket to attach a collapsible soft box to a speedlight. It worked really well for the camera, especially as it enabled me to get it completely level to my subject. I was controlling the the camera via the Panasonic app on my iPad.
The camera was set in Aperture Priority at f8 as I wanted a decent depth of field. ISO was set at 800 as I wanted to ensure a reasonable shutter speed. The images ended up being between 1/125s and 1/200s.
I took the overhead shots. Then, I repositioned the camera. I shot close to the water, which enabled me to get Mogane’s reflection in it. Because it did not want too much focus on the background I stretched some frost cloth behind the pool
The light had faded somewhat by the stage. So, I positioned a speed light with an orange gel at a very low power to camera right. This added a kick of golden light into the images.
We are both pleased with the results of the shoot. It was interesting shooting the same scenario with four different models at different times of day. I would learn heaps from each shoot that I would then apply to the next one.
I had thought that Morgane was the last of the pool shoots. However, the following month, I did one more. That will be covered in a subsequent post.
The final pool shoot in the series that I had booked was with Morgane. She is both an experience model as well as a photographer. The shoot was different on a number of rules from the previous three.
Firstly she was not interested in doing a shoot in the studio. She requested that we shoot around the garden under natural light. The second difference was that she likes to edit her own images so images from the shoot receive minimal processing from Me before they were provided to her.
We planned the shoot for the early evening to ensure that we had the best light based on the experience from the previous three pool shoots. As I was not going to be restricted by the size of my studio I decided to shoot differently. I fitted my Sigma 50mm f1.4 prime to my Nikon Z6ii and all of the images were taken with that. It is a great lens but not when you are in a tight situation and trying for full length images.
Because I did not want the background to be in focus the camera was shooting at f1.4 using aperture priority. This meant that the shutter speeds ranged from 1/160s to 1/400s.
Morgane brought some variations in her outfit and towards the end of the shoot we brought in the watering can so that it was not static posing.
At the end of the shoot I had a pose with my vintage camera that I incorporate in all of my model shoots.
Once we had finished the studio shoot we headed out to the pool.
We scheduled the shoot for much later in the day. I knew this timing would give us much more control on the light. The pool was positioned north south. By 5 o’clock, it was in the shade of a line of trees on our boundary. This meant that I did not have to deal with the direct overhead light.
The light levels were lower than I preferred. I needed to set ISO800 to maintain reasonable levels when shooting at f7.1. The camera was set in aperture priority mode with the overhead shots taken at 1/100s. The ones lower down were taken as 1/50s. This speed is quite slow for a portrait. However, the Lumix G9 has brilliant stabilisation built-in. I can handhold to almost the second.
Unlike the previous weekend the weather was warm and the pool had a chance to warm up. This meant that we had the time to set up the camera overhead and control it via the Ipad. Even so the total shoot lasted only six minutes.
The flowers were fabric which meant that they behaved completely different to actual flowers. Real flowers float whereas the fabric only stayed on the surface for a short period of time before sinking.
The boom arm and camera did appear as a reflection in the image. Knowing that this would happen I was careful where it was positioned. Then it was I knew that I would have to fix this in post. This was achieved mainly using content aware fill. In the lightest version of Photoshop, I would use the Remove tool. It does a much better job of removing such distractions.
This was a great shoot and again I learnt important things to build into the next one. The most obvious was that I needed to work out the background in someway. I had been removing elements in Photoshop but I figured it would be easier to do it in-camera.
The final shoot in the series booked for the following weekend so I did not have much time to wait.
My second pool shoot of 2023, and the third in the series, was with Kaylene. As before it started in the studio. It had been booked the previous week but the weather conditions that I had faced on that shoot were either worse where Kaylene lives. She drives a Tesla which auto systems did not like driving in low cloud.
For the shoot I was using my Nikon Z6ii tethered into the computer. The settings where F8 1/100s at ISO 100. The settings gave me full control over the ambient light.
The main light was positioned in a large softbox camera right at a 45° angle to Kaylene. A second light was at the rear of the room firing into a 7 foot umbrella fitted with a diffusion panel. This was set at a low power to simply fill in the shadows.
Kaylene was an experienced model so we were only using the studio shoots first is to get her comfortable with me. As such unlike the previous two shoots it only took around 30 minutes.
Kaylene has bought two outfits that we shot with both full lengths and with her sitting on the posing stool. I then grabbed one of the outfits that I had bought previously from thrift shops and we had a bit of fun with it and some other props.
Kaylene was easy to work with and it was no trouble nailing great images of her. The only issue that needed fixing in practically every shot was an annoying gap at the bottom of the backdrop and the floor. I had ordered the backdrop at what I thought was an adequate size. As it turned out they had included the area that was rolled over in the size in the printed size so the usable surface was about 10cm short.
We finished the shoot with an image for the selfie series.
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