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Historical Snow White

In honor of my photography Facebook page reaching a 100 likes, I ran a contest to give away a 100-minute photo shoot with digital images and a 5x7 print.   The winner of the contest was chosen at random from those who commented on the contest post.   The winner of the contest was Sara Cosplay, who does historical versions of the Disney princesses. 

Snow White in the Wood
She choose to do a combined outdoor and studio shoot for her historical Snow White cosplay.  We did the outside shots in a local park, which had a waterfall feature and a trestle area covered in ivy.  For the shoot, I used my standard 18-200 mm lens, using an ISO 100 with a f5 and smaller aperture, with various shutter speed, and an external flash.  The flash was used because the waterfall photos were taken in a heavily shaded area and it allowed for the me light the subject properly and separate here from the background.  My husband used his 70-200 mm lens with an ISO 100 with an f2.8 aperture with various shutter speeds and off-camera flash on a light stand.  The same basic set up was used for the photos taken in the ivy.  The goal of the outdoor shots was to capture Snow White in the woods.

Studio Shot
For the indoor, studio portion we used two backdrops, off camera flashes on light stands with shoot-through umbrellas and the same basic camera setting as previously.  My husband switched lens to a prime 50mm and a prime 85mm lens for his shots.   He also did not use the two flash set up, but a single off camera flash on a light stand with a 60-inch reflective umbrella.   The first backdrop we used was a dappled blue with a white wood floordrop.  Sadly, I did not have a baseboard to tie the two drops together.  Then we switch to a close to neutral grey backdrop, which also covered the floor. The goal of the studio shots was to capture a regal Snow White.

We post processed all the shots using a combination of Lightroom and Photo Shop CC.  For the outdoor shots we did basic retouching. While for the studio shots, we smoothed out the backdrops, which were very wrinkly, by using lens blur.  I also add a texture layer on some of the shots to change the background from smooth gray to a flower/paisley like wallpaper.   

Overall the session went well, and she was happy with the final product. 

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