• acting
• actor
• headshot
• Hudson Valley
• Photographer
• Model
• studio
• Módní
• wilhelmina
• parabolic
• brianna
• Modeling agency

A while ago I got a great chance to work with this beauty.  This is Brianna, who’s a local model who works for the Wilhelmina Modeling agency.  Man is this girl talented.  When she showed up in my studio, I knew we were going to get some fantastic shots.  She’s got a gorgeous face, and came with some fun clothes, and her makeup looked flawless.  I had seen Brianna on their boards, and just really loved her look.  So I was super excited when I got a chance to work with her.  We wanted to add some versatility to her portfolio.  Something that would show a few different looks, and sides.  I always try and add as much variation as I

can on a shoot like this, where you’re not chasing an editorial.  Which is fun, because you really get a chance to try out some things that you might not try otherwise.

For these first shots on gold.  I went and bought some gold wrapping paper.  Something that had some shimmer to it.  I hung 2 different sheets of it, and then just stitched them together in photoshop.  It was pretty easy to do, because I had made sure that I hung them well, and I lit them pretty evenly.  Brianna did a great job moving in front of them, even though it was difficult because I really didn’t have that much room to work with.  So I had to keep re centering her.  She was a trooper about it though.  I think for these, I just used a big parabolic, and aimed it pretty direct on her, while at the same time putting it just a bit above to get that nice butterfly shadow under her nose.  Parabolic lighting is so funny, because it looks so terrible in camera, and then you put just a hint of contrast on it, and suddenly it pops off the screen.  I fought this style for a long time, because I had such a hard time convincing myself that once I got home the shots wouldn’t suck.  It’s hard to show clients on the back of your camera, and convince them that these shots are going to turn out great when they look so dull and boring in the camera.  It’s funny, the more fashion I shoot, the more I learn to trust what my eye is telling me, and use the camera as an extension of that.

These next shots were some of my favorite.  I pushed a white light, on white, at almost full power.  Then I put a big reflector off to camera right.  This added back just a bit of light on her face to even out the exposure.  I liked this look, but since then I’ve learned that I like it a little bit better if I just light the subject, and don’t use a reflector.  It’s much easier to control, and it’s less retouching for me in the end, because I’m not bringing back an underexposed shot.

I really loved the way that these ones turned out too.  These were stupid simple.  Grey backdrop.  And a big octabox as a key light.  Camera left, exposed properly for her face.  I didn’t like how much falloff I was getting on her lower half, so I shot for the most part only upper half shots.

These shots we did right when Brianna came to my studio.  Some nice slick, and a little edgy outdoors shots.  I really like the way they came out in black and white.  I’ve included the color one here for reference, which isn’t a bad shot, but for some reason the black and white just looks a lot better.