Skip to main content

Silver Goddess

On April 20th,  I got to work with Valtinen to shoot a silver headpiece I made several months ago.  This shoot was inspired by the headpiece and a version of the “Lady of the Lake”.  The goal of the image was to be rather soft with a lot of light and silver tones. The post was held back till I found out if I was published. I had eight images from this set published in the May 2019 issue of Jazzy Magazine.  
For the shoot I used the following items: 
Set Up

·                  Canon 70D
·                  18- 200 mm lens
·                  Strobes with power supply
·                  7-foot reflective umbrella
·                  C-stand with boom arm
·                  RF-transmitter
·                  Tether line
·                  Desktop
·                  Silver garage insulation
·                  white tulle
·                  Step stool
·                  Props: sword, and three large peonies
·                  Handsome assistant

The set up for this was rather simple (See image right).  I placed the large umbrella with the strobes in front and slightly above the mode. Because the background was silver a good portion of the light bounced back for a glow. I started with two speed lights off to each side pointed directly at the background, but due to the reflectivity of the background, I ended up with competing light sources.  Thus, I turned the speed lights off and only used one light.

Now onto the image descriptions.  I shot 199 frames, edited 106 frames, and delivered 52 final images. I shot using ISO 100,  with an aperture of F8, and a shutter speed of  1/250s. My focal length ranged from 18 mm to 60 mm with the most common focal lengths being 28mm and 24mm.

I edited all these images very similarly, to ensure they maintained a glow to them. To achieve the glow, I used a preset called soft glow a starting main edit, after completing the white balance, exposure, and luminosity base edits to ensure consistency within the set.  I then blurred the background slightly, which also reduced the texture. I also ensured the models face was properly lit compared to the background.  Because the outfit for this shoot was sheer draped fabric, held together with a few pins, I did have to do some photoshoot edits.  I did the photoshop edits to cover gaping holes in the fabric drape,  I also did do some frequency separation on a few of the up-close images to ensure the model’s face kept a nice soft glow.  I did also adjust the color slightly on a peonies to bring the pink color out, because they were slightly getting washout out by all the light and white in the image.  Overall the shoot went well and the images turned out how I expected once the light was dialed in appropriately. 
ISO 100, Aperture F8, Shutter 1/250s, Focal Length 18mm
ISO 100, Aperture F8, Shutter 1/250s, Focal Length 50mm

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Katsucon 2025 Wrap - Up

Katsucon 2025 didn’t seem as crowded as 2024, but I still wasn’t feeling it.  Katsucon will always have a special place in my heart, but I think I’m just bored with it, from a creative perspective.   While I still love working with cosplayers the location itself no longer excites me and I’m tired of fighting the crowds.  If I return to Katsucon 2026 I think I’ll just set up a studio in my room and do studio sessions.  I can be a lot more creative with a studio session, and I get to use all my lights.  So now let's talk about photography.   For Katsucon I was shooting with my Canon R6 with an 24-105 Canon RF lens, and I had a fisheye lens on me as well, but we will discuss that later.  I had two speedlights, one on camera which acted as a trigger 90-percent of the time and one on a light stand which my husband would hold during shoots. This year I booked 11 cosplay sessions and shot 869 frames.  I shot a range of ISOs from ISO 100 to ISO 800...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cobwebs Everywhere

On October 7 th , I did a studio spooky session with Coralinx Cosplay .   The central theme of this shoot was a pretty goth girl who had a fondness for spiders and decorating with cobwebs, making it a perfect Halloween session.   Note: Cobwebs are defined as abandoned or old spiderwebs that have collected dust.   Many cobwebs are the result of comb-footed spider (i.e., black widows) that make irregularly shaped webs.   Spiderwebs are active structures built to catch prey.   (Source: Western Exterminator Company) For these sessions, I used: Photography Equipment Other Equipment Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Westcott FJ400 2 Phottix Strobes 2 strip boxes 2 rectangular soft boxes 2 c-stands 3 light stands Backdrop stand Black seamless 2 Westcott silicon gels Tether cable Laptop Laptop holder Sandbags A-clamps Spyder Color checker Fake cobwebs Table ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Attempted Camping

  This past weekend, my husband and I tried to spend the weekend at Post Card Cabins in Shenandoah for our anniversary.  I say tried, because I got sick halfway through our trip, and we had to go home early.    But the first part was nice. Post Card Cabins are owned by Marriott and located about 2 hours from D.C. in the Shenandoah region of Virginia, off I-81.   There is also another set of cabins located off I-15, but we stayed at the ones off I-81.  The property features several of these, in what I call a cabin development, which are spaced a decent distance apart, creating the illusion of privacy.  The cabins are essentially tiny homes featuring a large picture window at one end, a small bathroom, a mini-fridge, a compact kitchenette with plates, silverware, a pot, and a pan, and a queen bed.  They also come with two Adirondack chairs, a picnic table, a fire pit with wood, and a s'mores kit minus the sticks.    ...
Post a Comment
Read more