Michelle

Michelle, originally uploaded by Artistic Endeavors.

Taken using an AlienBee800 and a small shoot through umbrella. Straining the battery at full power because I'm in a battle to achieve a balanced exposure over powering the sun. It was getting fairly bright in the sky, so this was closer to the end of the sunrise shoot that morning. The interesting thing about this was....I moved the light very little...as long as I always placed the model in the same spot (they can wander if you're not watching them closely). Put the light so I'm not shooting dead on, and made sure I got the proper exposure on her face, not allowing her to become a sillouhuette. I was fairly golden. The sunlight causing the highlight in her hair was just icing on the cake.

Sherita and the beach (or a tale of a light and a battery)

The idea for this pose was found in a magazine. The models name is Sherita and it was taken 9/05/2009 at the ocean.

To say she was a pleasure to work with would be an understatement.


I used a battery source similar to this



and a small shoot through umbrella with an Alien Bee 800, set at 1/2 power if I remember correctly. A small umbrella was used to modify the light, and she's backlit by good old Mr. Sun. I handheld the camera, as I'm prone to do on beach shoots, usually because I've almost always got enough light to be able to so. I've learned (Thank you Will King!) that before the sun is too far past the horizon, it takes less FLASH to overcome it. As the sun draws past the level of the horizon, it takes more and more FLASH to overcome it, until you lose the balance of light ratios and the Sun becomes brighter than your flash can compensate. Believe me, you don't want to be shooting at noon in the sun! That's unless you have a scrim, which if I needed more modifying I would have someone hold to softewn the suns rays shining on her. In hindsight, a scrim may have prevented the hot spot on her cheek. I do the do-it-yourself way with a frame made of PVC and elbows from the local hardware store, and a Wally World white cotton single flat sheet and some velcro tape. That scrim would also be a way to bounce light as a reflector, but since it's unyielding, you can't shape it, as you can do with a real reflector. In the modern day of Digital Photography, I have to agree with other photographers, that you can look at the LCD screen and tell if you "got it". Just make sure to zoom in to verify focal sharpness.