The Pond
For this shoot I used:
- Canon 80D
- Wireless Transmitter
- Two Phottix Indra500 Strobes with Battery Packs
- Two 5” Strobe Reflectors
- Speed Light
- Small Soft box
- 2 C-stands
- Standard Light Stand
- Backdrop stand
- Large Black Backdrop
- Inflatable Pool
- Water
- Rocks
- Foam Blocks
- Fake Foliage/Flowers (grasses, waterlilies, and lily
pads)
- Exercise Mats
- Step Stool
- Cart
- Laptop
- Tether
- Sand bags
We will discuss how I
made the pond, the lighting set up, the shoot breakdown, and finally a few of
my favorite images.
The Pond
To make the pond I used
a large rectangular kids swimming pool that I set up in my garage. I set the pool up on exercise matts to
protect the bottom of the pool and make it a little more comfortable for my
models to stand and lay on. I then draped a large black backdrop across the pool
to cover the bottom and sides. Because I used the 10x20 backdrop I still had
enough fabric left to lift it with the backdrop stand to use as an actual
backdrop. I then filled the pool about
halfway with water. Once the pool was full,
I put in the foliage.
To make the pond foliage
I went to Michael’s Arts & Crafts and bought long plastic grass and fluffy vines,
mostly from their tropical plant section.
I then stuck those into foam blocks, which in hind sight I should not
have used. Foam floats and the weight of
the fake grass was not enough to keep it down, I should have used modeling
clay. Once all the grass was arranged, I put the foam blocks into the pool and
weighed them down using zip lock bags full of rock. I used zip lock bags
because I could pull a piece of grass out and then re-stick into the foam while
piercing the bag to hold everything in place. Also, the zip lock bags are clear
so did not interfere with the aesthetic. Once all the grass was in place and weighted down,
I placed fake lily pads and water lilies, obtained from Amazon, on top of the
water to complete the look and feel of a pond.
Light Set Up
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| Light Set Up |
The lighting for this
shoot was complicated yet rather simple.
The overall challenge of this shoot maintaining soft light without getting
reflections of the lighting equipment in the water. Luckily our garage is all
white, which means it is reflective from a photography standpoint. To get nice
diffuse light across the top of the “pond” a C-stand mounted with a strobe and
bell reflector was placed on each side near the top of the pool were the foliage
was and pointed straight up at the ceiling.
The ceiling bounced the light down onto the pool. I used a second smaller light stand, which I
could easily move around, that had a speed light and small soft box attached to
it to add small pop of light to the model’s face depending on their pose. The speed light was mostly used for direct
face shots or when the model was laying sideways in the pool instead of calmly
floating face up. You can see the set up
in the images below as well as a couple of the lighting tests. I used a gorilla pod with a skull mounted on
top, as a surrogate model to test the light set up and dial in the flash power
and camera settings before the shoot started.
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| Light Test 1 |
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| Light Test 2 |
The Shoot Breakdown
I did two different
sessions on different days using this set up. I spaced the shoots about 24
hours apart so that I could clean and disinfect the pool between each person.
For the first session
was with Cayce. I shot 155 frames at ISO
200, with an aperture of f8 and a shutter speed of 1/250s. The only things that varied was the focal
length which ranged from 18mm to 70mm and the power of the flash from the speed
light to ensure I got the right mood.
The most common focal length was 32mm. Of the160 frames shot, I edited 110
frames and released 68 final images.
For second session with
SalTea. I shot 186 frames at ISO 200,
with an aperture of f10 and a shutter speed of 1/200s. The only things that varied was the focal
length which ranged from 18mm to 70mm and the power of the flash from the speed
light to ensure I got the right mood.
The most common focal length was 28mm. Of the 186 frames shot, I edited 93
frames and released 51 final images.
Favorite Images
When I was editing both
sets of images I was trying to go for the dreamy soft ethereal look. So, when editing in Lightroom I dropped my
clarity down to -10 and my saturation down to -10 as well which softens and
lightens the images. I also went through and used frequency separation to smooth
out skin tones and remove any minor blemishes. Finally, I went in and added a
few highlights to the face along the T-zone using the dodging tool.
I have a lot of favorite
images from both sessions. This first image from Cayce’s session I love because
it reminds me of a perfume advertisement.
The face is soft but you see longing gaze in her eyes. For this image the small moveable light stand
with the speedlight and soft box was place to my right, raised slightly, then
pointed at the model’s face to just add a pop of light. When editing the image,
I enhanced the lighting on the face slightly and added a vignette to the image
to draw your attention to her face.
I like this second image
because it is soft and makes you wonder if you should feel happy, should you feel sad, or just take the time to contemplate
the flower. I like how I’m not directly seeing her eyes and they are pointed
down towards the flower. The lighting is
soft, and was created by having the speedlight with soft box to my right and
angled slightly down on to the models face but not head on, it is more of side
light. When editing I enhanced the
lighting a bit and ensured when dodging I was following the natural highlights
to slightly accentuate them. This image was also published in Gilded Magazine Issue 63.2.
This final image of Cayce
is a mix of inspiration of Ophelia from Shakespeare and the Lady of the Lake from
Arthurian ledged. The image also let you
see the full “pond”. This image is soft and serene. I give the
model credit in making this image because the water was a bit chilly, and she
was able to keep a soft face without showing the water was cold event though I
filled the pool the night before with the hopes the water would warm up some. I
did not use the speed light and only used the light bounced by the two strobes. When editing the image, I did add a bit more
light to her face, and then added a bit of a vignette to the image.
My favorite image from
the session with SalTea is this one of him kneeling and looking as though he is
offering a water lily to a passing adventure as a blessing. To create this shot
my husband was standing on a ladder to my left with a hose with a spray
attachment. He was pointing it so the
water would fall in front of the model, while giving the impressing they were
in a gentile rain. To make sure the models face was lit up, I
used the small light stand with the speed light and soft box placed to my right. I moved slightly off center from the model
to ensure I could catch the reflection
of the light in the water drops. When
editing this image, I only brightened the face slightly. I did not apply any
smoothing because it would ruin the rain effect on the face and body.
I like this image of
SalTea because it looks like he has been startled from resting and admiring the
water lily. It gives me the impression
like he heard a passing adventure, should he be concerned or was it nothing. I did use the small speed light with soft box
to put a pop of light on the model’s face and ensure there was a little bit of
catch light in the eyes. When editing I kept the image soft, and brightened the
natural highlights some. To finish the image,
I added a slight vignette.
Again, this final image
of SalTea gives off the Ophelia from Shakespeare vibe. I like how we got the water
lilies to frame the face, and provide a leading line around the image. Because this was a straight down image, I did
not use the small speed light and solely relied on the two strobes. When editing I brightened the face slightly
and add accentuated a few of the natural highlights. I finished the image off by adding a vignette.
I give both models props
for being able to work in the water, which is not very warm and maintain soft
expressions. Also, this was not a particularly easy shoot for the models due to
having a bit of restricted space due to the fake grass used to give the pool
the pond look. Both models had to be very
carful on how they moved, as to not cause large wave that would disturb the
background or hit the background with their hands or feet and cause the grass
to float away.
I would eventually like
to do this shoot again, but with a few minor tweaks. The first change I would
make would be to how the grassy foliage is put into the pool, I would not use foam
blocks but blocks of clay. The second change
would be to the background itself. I just had a plain black background, but I
think I would hand a fake sky that falls behind the foliage to make the overall
scene more realistic.
If you get a chance
check out Cayce’s Instagram
and SalTea’s Instagram and
give them a like.
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