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Parachute Sunset

On August 22 I did a sunset photoshoot with the lovely Tabathaology at Oaks Quarry Park.  For this shoot I put the model in a green parachute dress,  you can learn more about the dress in my previous blog post “Parachute Dress in Studio”.

For this shoot I used:

  • Canon 80D
  • Speed Light
  • Wireless transmitter
  • Painter’s Pole extendable to 12-feet
  • Assistant (who happens to be my husband)

For this shoot,  I went with a VAL (voice activated light stand, i.e. my husband with a painter’s pole) because we were shooting on location and I wanted to make sure the light was above and pointed down at my model while being able to quickly move and adjust the light.  I also employed the model’s kids who came to the shoot.  The kids were very well behaved and acted as dress flippers to give the dress some movement.  Unlike my previous session with the parachute dress where I used an industrial fan under the dress to provide the movement.

For this shoot, I shot 147 frames at ISO 200 with an aperture of F7.1. My shutter speeds varied between 1/160s and 1/250s, with most fames taken at 1/250s which is the flash sync speed. My focal length varied from 18mm to 40mm, with a majority of the shots taken at 18mm to capture the whole scene.  Of the 147 frames I edited 80 frames, and released 44 final images.  As I do more and more photo session I have come to realize less is more and am more critical of which shots are delivered as finals so my best work is seen.

This session was a bit challenging to edit due to the changing light conditions and the mixture of light due to the sunset providing yellows and oranges and the flash providing a cleaner white light.  So, when editing I adjusted the white balance to flash, then added a bit of selective color over the model to bring out the oranges from the sunset. I also reduced the clarity and saturation slightly. Finally, I toned all the images using an orange/blue split tone combination. The orange colored the highlight and the blues went to the shadows, this popped the images and brought out the beginning of the sunset in the background.

I like several of the images from this session. The one below nicely captures the beginning of sunset with the hints of pink in the background. But what I really like about the picture is that it doesn’t look like it was shot in Ohio, it lets you easily image the picture was taken someplace else in the world.


I also like this image from the session. The clouds in the background really help give the image a sense of power.  I also like how it shows off the size of the dress, without dwarfing the model.


Overall, the set came out nice, but I would like to redo the set.  I think more can be done to show off the volume of the dress. Also, one of the straps broke towards the end of the session which I didn’t notice till the very end when getting the model out of the dress.  When reviewing the frames, I can sort of tell when the strap broke because the dress was no longer snug to the model and was starting to billow unevenly.  I have since fixed the strap and reinforced it so it won’t break again.  Thus, I want to redo the set. 

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