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My Top 11 Photos From 2011

vtography — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 02:20:00 +0000

In no particular order, here are my eleven favourite photos that I shot during 2011.

Final Shot of Sam in the Studio

vtography — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:47:44 +0000

The last one. For reals.

Light Painting with Monica

vtography — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:12:23 +0000

There are so many good things I could say about Monica, I don’t even know where to begin. But I think I’ll let the images speak for themselves. I very much look forward to shooting her again. Soon.

The Last of Sam in the Studio

vtography — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:30:56 +0000

I’ve used Heather Windsor’s studio in Bowmanville, Ontario for the last year as my shooting home. And as any regular reader of this blog knows, Samantha is the one model I’ve photographed more often than any other in that space. So here’s a couple images from our last shoot before the studio was shut down.

Alexandra in the Darkness

vtography — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:04:03 +0000

She flies…

She plays dead…

She exercises…

She dances…

Two More of Em

vtography — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:16:57 +0000

Em(ily)

vtography — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 05:24:23 +0000

Em hates being called Emily. I do it anyway because I like it.

My first encounter with Em was in January 2010. I’d just taken on a new job as photographer at a club in Oshawa called Junction. That’s when I ran into this group of young ladies…

Beautiful gals, all of them, but of all the people I photographed that evening, Em stood out for some reason.

Fast forward a month to February 2010. Junction again.

Well look who it is! Em again. I recognized her from the first time I shot her but didn’t say anything. Running into her twice in two months was more than my tiny brain could handle.

“I must photograph this girl,” I muttered.

Fast forward to November 2010. The Facebook app on my BlackBerry lights up. Friend request from Em… what?!

How did she find me? How does she know who I am? Let’s fire up Facebook Chat and find out.

Turns out we had a mutual friend who was singing my praises as a photographer, and Em wanted to check out my photos, hence the friend request. She had no clue that I photographed her at Junction twice.

After a few months of back and forth communication, we got ourselves together for a little photoshoot in February 2011, exactly one year and one day after our second “meeting”.

Em is an avid viewer of America’s Next Top Model, so she was ready to pose up a storm for me despite not having the unrealistic body proportions on display on that show. Em looks like a real woman, which makes me happy.

It’s so nice sometimes to just hit up the studio with a willing model, a casual wardrobe, and windows streaming with daylight. All of these were shot without any artificial light sources. The tried and true 50mm f/1.8 lens was used for each of the non-club shots. It’s a lens I hadn’t pulled out of my bag in a while — I started out the shoot using my disappointing 70-200mm f/2.8 but quickly switched to the 50mm for something different.

Casual Sammy

vtography — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:52:27 +0000

Just lounging around the studio… on a fancy chaise lounge… barely wearing anything… with her hair and makeup all done up…

Jenny

vtography — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 05:38:00 +0000

Jenny’s young, but experienced at modelling in her underwear. One thing we both quickly realized is how she falls back on a fairly standard set of poses and expressions in all her photos, so we tried to get her out of that pattern with this shoot. I like to think that she enjoyed the challenge.

Lighting here was with my totally awesome, brand new, and perpetually back-ordered AlienBees 86″ (!) Parabolic Light Modification System with diffusion sock. Oh my goodness, I love the PLM so much — mostly because it’s absolutely enormous and the quality of the light is fantastic. The build quality and ergonomics are also leaps and bounds better then my AlienBees ABR800 Ringflash. Assembling the PLM takes all of thirty seconds, whereas fighting with the ABR800 and Moon Unit is a lifelong battle. It’s like wrestling an alligator. Ugh. Anyhoo, PLM awesomeness aside, the background above was a couple leather couches stood on their sides.

Studio Fun with Samantha and Maddie

vtography — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 05:18:07 +0000

This was shot with my new AlienBees ABR800 Ringflash and Moon Unit diffuser:

I may have mentioned it before, but one of the most tedious yet hilarious things about shooting with Samantha is her insistence on wearing tops that are one size too small for her. This means that her boobs look great but produces the side effect of me having to Photoshop her nipples out of every shot. Sigh — the life of a photographer.

This is the setup for the shot above (ABR800 w/Moon Unit behind the model, SB-900 in front):

This uses the exact same setup, except that Samantha and I have switched positions, and the Moon Unit is now facing her with the SB-900 behind her creating the flare:

Makeup in all photos by Maddie Allegro.