The Aerialist

On July 11^th, I did a photoshoot with the lovely Vanessa in the white studio at Something OldDayton.  This shoot focused on emphasizing the beauty and poise of an aerialist using a ring and silks.  We did a very clean classic look, and white walls of the studio emphasized  the artistry and lines of each of the poses.  

For this shoot I used:

• Canon 80D
• 2 Phottix strobes
• 2 Phottix rectangular soft boxes with a grid
• 2 C-stands
• Ladder
• Aerialist rig (supplied by the model)
• Aerialist ring (supplied by model)
• Silks (supplied by model)

For this shoot, the lights were placed at a bit more than 45-degrees and a little off of 90-degrees from the center of the rig and model . We tried to keep them level with the model while ensuring the light was not casting shadows from the rig onto the models. (See photo below.) 

Set up

I shot tethered, so the husband/assistant and I could check the first few shots to make sure the lighting was good.  Also, by shooting tethered, it allowed the model to see how the poses looked and possibly adjust positioning.  I shot 107 frames at ISO 200 with an aperture of F8, and a shutter speed of 1/250s, with the flashes set just slightly above a quarter power.  I chose F8 to ensure that the whole body would remain in focus, during the movements and so I could shoot quickly.  Some of the poses cannot be held long, thus it was important to be able to shoot quickly. This is also why we dialed in the setting early and did not change them during the shoot. These setting also kept the studio a nice clean white. My focal length ranged from 18mm  to 50mm, with a majority of the shots being at 18mm.  I was the more than the social distancing distance of 6-feet which would allow for zooming, however I needed to be able to capture enough with and height at the same time depending on the pose. Of the 107 frames I edited 68 frames, and released 59 final images.

One of my favorite images from the sessions is the one below. I like it because I feel like it is a simple classic pose. The lighting is soft and highlights everything nicely. When editing this image, I did crop it down slightly to cut out the poles from the rig, and removed the rough wood beam from the top of the wall. I also did a small bit of smoothing just to even out the skin. I also reduced the reds and oranges in the image slightly. I then applied a 5-percent orange/teal tone to the image, followed by a slight vignette to finish the image. 

Below is my other favorite image from the session.  I like the pose, because it is very strong yet graceful and elegant. I also kept the rig and the beams in this photo for two reasons, 1) because they provide context to the image and help tell a more complete story and 2) by removing the rig it opens the photo up for questions loses it context. When editing this image, I kept it as bright as possible with out loosing contrast, I also applied a slight mat to the image to make it look a little softer and smoother.  

I enjoyed this shoot and tried to keep the final photos very consistent in the editing style, and tried to keep them as clean as possible.  I will say this was also a challenging shoot.  The challenge was knowing when the model was in the proper pose, and making sure the pose was caught at a good angle, as to not have missing body parts or body parts looking like they were coming from the wrong places. Finally, I had to consider, when hanging upside-down all the blood rushes to the head making the face and neck appear redder than the rest of the body. I had to make sure I minimized this during editing process.   Overall, I thing the pictures turned out well and I enjoyed shooting with the model.  I would like to do it again, but with a more interesting background and go for a more dramatic look.