Beauty Shots, Ghetto Style

August 13, 2010

Amy’s back!

This is my first (and possibly last) foray into the genre of beauty photography. I don’t necessarily own all the proper equipment to do “real” beauty shots, but I figured it was a fun challenge to see how far I could get with what I have.

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Because I was travelling, I could only bring a minimum of gear with me. The three shots of Amy you see here were all lit the same way (see diagram below). I had Amy perch herself on the armrest of the couch in my hotel room, which was in a corner. The walls had a textured beige wallpaper but I needed that to be white, so I put a Nikon SB-800 flash (1/8th power) on a Cameron W-804 light stand behind Amy and aimed it directly into the corner. Next, I put a Nikon SB-900 on another stand to camera left with a Photoflex 30″ UM-RUT30 convertible white umbrella in shoot-through mode. I didn’t aim it directly at Amy, but rather just to her right, to feather the light slightly. The whole rig was fired wirelessly from the pop-up flash in my D300S.

The light stands and two umbrellas easily fit into a medium-sized suitcase for travelling.

Before I left Toronto to go to Halifax, I headed to Forever 21 to pick up some necklaces to use for the shoot. I found a cute owl and a neat peacock design — only $6.80 each, believe it or not!

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned Amy’s ridiculous blue eyes before, but I’ll point them out again for fun. They’re fantastic.

Makeup was courtesy of the wonderful Kaily Grist, who you’ll hear more about when I post the next batch of Amy photos.

All in all, I think the whole team did a pretty tremendous job considering the limitations on our resources. Who needs a studio?

Amy at the Beach

August 1, 2010

I’m working through my Nova Scotia photos in chronological order. First up was Marietta and now it’s my old all-time favourite, Amy. Below you’ll find two of the four concepts that we did throughout my 10-day stay on the east coast. Still to come from my trip: more Marietta, more Amy, Gillian, Madison, and Christine!

I think this first photo is probably the best one we made, and it was so simple to set up. We just needed a few basic ingredients:

  • late evening sunlight
  • a beach (Silver Sands Beach in Cow Bay, Nova Scotia)
  • $20 Reebok swimsuit (from the Cookstown Outlet Mall)
  • statuesque pose

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Amy is very bendy, as you can see. Years of cheerleading.

The next two photos were taken closer to sunset, in a $23 dress I found at Urban Planet.

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And finally, a rare smile! I think I said something funny.

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Amy in Green

November 7, 2009

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From my trip to Halifax last month: Amy tore herself away from her nuclear medicine studies for a nice dinner and photoshoot with moi. I got to try fried pepperoni for the first time, and Amy got to do a shoot at night — something that was apparently lacking from her portfolio. We headed to a wooded spot near an industrial part of Woodside in Dartmouth and I set up two Nikon Speedlights for lighting. I traveled to Halifax by air, which meant packing light was key. I couldn’t bring along my rather large Alien Bees, but nor did I have to. The tiny Speedlights did a fantastic job. Check out the diagram:

lighting-diagramThe rear Speedlight (an SB-900) was placed behind the trees, angled upwards, and covered with a green gel, using the supplied filter holder. The Speedlight in front (an SB-800 in a small umbrella) was placed to Amy’s left, but not directly aimed at her. I opted to feather the light by aiming the beam just in front of where she was crouching. All of this was triggered by the built-in flash of my Nikon D200, although not using Nikon’s CLS system since it wasn’t cooperating with me.

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Amy’s blue eyes are insanely gorgeous, and yes, they’re really that colour! Oddly, this is the second time I’ve photographed Amy with primarily green tones. Our first adventure in green can be seen here.

Amy in Blue

September 7, 2009

My day job is working in a photo lab and occasionally a roll of photo paper gets exposed or damaged and becomes unusable. I took one of these damaged rolls with me on my road trip to Nova Scotia this past July and put it to good use in a photoshoot with Amy. Amy is one of my best friends on this planet, despite living a million miles away from me. We trekked up to a gazebo on the top of a hill overlooking the Halifax harbour. This wasn’t the best idea, as the higher elevation meant stronger winds, which temporarily wreaked havoc with my umbrella lighting setup until I found a way to secure it.

Here’s the setup… Amy builds our paper nest as her superhero alter-ego, “FujiFilm Girl”:

Amy was a trooper, on the mend from a bad cough and sore throat. She did her own hair and makeup, and wore the H&M party dress that I brought along with me from Toronto. I foolishly forgot the matching black gloves to go with it. For lighting, I put a Nikon SB-800 in a shoot-thru umbrella to camera left and triggered it with the SB-900 on my D200. The result:

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What does one do with 180m of unspooled photo paper? We couldn’t just leave it there. See for yourself:

Amy

December 9, 2008

It’s a good thing that people don’t ask me who my favourite person is to shoot. I’d have far too many answers. However, near the top of that list would be this young lady, Amy.

Let’s quickly run through why Amy is awesome:

  1. She loves junk food more than I do
  2. She’s highly cooperative
  3. She’s a former cheerleader!

“How,” you ask, “do those qualities help you make good photos, Ryan?”

I’m glad you asked:

  1. Sharing a pre-photoshoot slice of pizza and cookies gives us both enough energy to keep at it for hours
  2. As seen above, Amy let me cover her in flour and willingly sat on a cold concrete floor in a utility closet
  3. Being a nimble and agile cheerleader helps when you’re perched on a rock at the end of the earth

Although Amy is a gorgeous woman, she upped the creep factor by several magnitudes to get the bizarre green photos you see above. Versatility is key, models! Anyone can stand around and smile and look pretty — even I’d look reasonable with enough makeup slathered on my face. Maybe not. But Amy brings it, every shoot, every time.

So now you know why Amy is awesome. Interestingly, Amy resisted posting the photo above to her Facebook profile, out of fear that it would creep out her friends and family too much. That’s why I’m awesome.

See more of Amy on my Flickr page, her deviantArt profile, and her ModelMayhem profile.