The final outfit that Mumtaz brought was a red sequinned red dress with a long slit up one side. Again it was a good opportunity to show off Mumtaz’s legs.

Unlike the previous shoots, I wanted this one to be slightly more relaxed. So, I brought in a black leather couch for her to recline on.

I asked her to think about a scene where she was relaxing after a night out on the town. Giving a model a concert also helps get them into the right frame of mind for the shoot.

The lighting did not change from the previous shots. The main light was in 1.5m octabox positioned camera right and at a 90° angle to Mumtaz.  

The grid was placed back on the the 7” reflector that was positioned camera left to act as a hairlight. 

As with the previous set on the stool gave Mumtaz a prop to interact with.

All of the images in this post were shot with my Lumix G9. The settings were 1/200s f8 ISO 200. The focal lengths were at 24mm.  Shooting so wide did mean that I was capturing more than I wanted. Fortunately Photoshop makes it fairly easy to remove elements you don’t want from the image.

The other impact of shooting so wide is that it makes anything close to the camera larger. In the final image, her legs are really emphasized.

It was a fun afternoon shooting with Mumtaz.

Asking anyone to stand in front of the camera can be daunting. This is true even if they have substantial experience doing it. I have found that if you want someone to relax, give them something to interact with. This can be as simple as something to sit on or something to put in their hands.

The fourth outfit that Mumtaz brought was a printed white dress. Unlike the previous outfits this one was quite short so it was a good opportunity to show off Mumtaz’s legs. I brought in an adjustable stool for her to sit on.

I also gave her some props to work with. The camera is part of my collection has become somewhat of a theme in that I try to get an image each time with a different models.

The lighting did not change much from the previous shots. The main light was in 1.5 m octabox positioned camera right and at a 90° angle to Mumtaz.  

The grid was placed back on the  the 7” reflector that was positioned camera left.

All of the images in this post were shot with my Lumix G9. The settings were 1/200s f8 ISO 200. The focal lengths were at 24mm. 

The second outfit that Mumtaz brought was a royal blue dress. This needed to be lit much more than the previous red outfit.

I brought in a 1.5 m octabox and positioned camera right and at a 90° angle to Mumtaz.  This was a much bigger and softer light than the one used in the previous post. 

The grid was removed from the 7” reflector and this was positioned camera left. In this position it acted as a hair light but also without the grid spilled on the background. 

At the end of the session, I repositioned the hairlight. I put it on a floor stand behind Mumtaz, shooting upwards straight into the backdrop. This created definite separation and lighting pattern that I would not normally use.

All of the images in this post was shot with my Lumix G9 with settings 1/200s f8 ISO 200 with focal lengths at 24mm. 

Mumtaz what’s the other model that had come to the portrait workshop held earlier in the year. At the end of that session, I had arranged for her to come to the studio. We could shoot under more controlled lighting.

She brought along a number of outfits. The shoot nearly lasted two hours that I will cover in this and the next three post. I have split the session into multiple posts because there were a number of lighting changes. I want to show the effect of these changes rather than confuse them in a long single post. 

We started with a single light in a 7 inch gridded reflector positioned to camera left and at a 90° angle to Mumtaz. The grid was to control the amount of spill from the light onto the backdrop. This created a very dramatic light with strong contrast and dark shadows.

The disadvantage of such a small light source is that it is very difficult to get light in the models eyes unless they are looking directly towards it.

I shot all of the images in this post with my Lumix G9. The settings were 1/200s f8 ISO 200 with focal lengths at 24mm. The setting ensured that I had full control of the light while also giving me a good depth of field.  

The focal length enabled me to shoot full body in my relatively small studio. The camera was tethered to the computer meaning that I could see them much larger than on the back of the camera. The computer also enabled my subject to see the images and make adjustments on the fly.

I used software developed by Panasonic for the tether. In addition to the memory card in the camera, the photos were transferred to the computer as they were taken. They were stored in a specific folder that I had said up Adobe Lightroom to monitor. As each image came in then appeared in Lightroom.

Lightroom does have a tethering function but at the time it was not available for my camera. I have also found it was not all that stable at the time I was shooting.