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Portrait Session

Back in mid-April, I did a birthday session for Stella. She wanted a boss-babe styled session with a few cute, bubbly photos at the end.  We did an hour and a half session with five outfit variations. 

For this session, I used:

Photography Equipment

Props/Miscellaneous

Cannon R6

24-105 mm Lens

Transmitter/Trigger

2 Phottix Strobe

1 rectangular soft box

1 60-inch umbrella with sock

2 C-stands

Sandbags

Backdrop stand

White backdrop

Pink backdrop

Spyder Color Checker Card

A-clamps

1.5-foot wooden cube

2-foot wooden cube

White paper to cover the cubes

Flowers

Stool

 

The setup

This session was a simple portrait session, with no fancy set or props, making the setup very easy.  I started by hanging a white 20x10 backdrop, which would function more as a floor-drop than a backdrop.  I then hung a hand-painted pink canvas backdrop over a white backdrop.  I then placed two posing cubes, covered in white wrapping paper, in the center of the back and floor drops.  

For lighting, I went simple, as I knew we would be doing a lot of outfit changes, so I didn’t want to take time consistently rearranging lights.  My goal was to place the lights, then either turn them on or off to get different lighting looks, based on the outfit and mood.  I placed the square softbox about 45 degrees off center to my left, which would be my main light.  While I placed the umbrella, about 15 degrees off center to my right, to act as the fill.  Overall, this lighting setup leaned towards a bright commercial fashion look, which was perfect for the vision of the session.


Camera Settings

For the camera setting, I used ISO 100, with an aperture of F4 and a shutter speed of 1/200s and 1/250s.  My focal length varied from 24mm to 105mm, with the most common focal length being 39mm.   I went with the F4 aperture to have softer edges, flatter the skin, and blur the backdrop just a tad.

The Photos

Because this was a simple studio portrait session the base edits were simple and consistent across all the frames.  I did the basics of adjusting white balance, tweaking exposure, and adjusting contrast.  I relied on the Spyder Color Checker software to ensure natural-looking skin tones and proper colors in the image.  I then removed some spots from the background and wrinkles in the floor drops, and folds in the paper covers on the posing blocks.  The item taking the longest was doing the overall retouch, as this session had a lot of close-ups, I spent extra time on the skin retouch.  Don’t get me wrong, the client had beautiful skin, but removing flyaways, minor blemishes, and odd clothing wrinkles takes time.  In most cases, I used the RetouchForMe software to run dodge and burn which helps to even out the entire image.

My favorite image from the session is below, because it is a nice simple portrait with a little edge.

I also like this image because it is very much a fashion pose, you could see in a magazine or high-end clothing catalog.

This image gives off relaxed boss-babe vibes, because of the pose and simple lighting used for the image.

This final image is one of my personal favorites.  While lighting leans towards low key, I personally think it adds to the simple elegance of the outfit and the overall image.

Wrap Up

This was a great session, and Stella was a breeze to work with.  I think what made this session successful was the communication between me and the client.  She provided me with her initial vision and thoughts for what she was looking for, and then we refined the vision together through mood boards and a Zoom call.  I was also happy that she shared pictures of the outfits she was planning to bring, so I could plan the shot list and quickly work through them in a logical fashion without rushing.  I think what made this session successful was communication throughout the whole process.

 

Credits:

Models: Stella (IG: huyenstellale)

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