Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” — Franklin P. Jones
Valentine’s Day, sometimes also called Saint Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. The holiday originated as a Western Christian feast day to honor one or two early saints that were named Valentinus. Valentine’s Day is recognized as a cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and romantic love in many places around the world, although it’s not a public holiday in any country.
Happy Valentines Day
Which brings me to how today’s featured image was made and the lighting equipment that was used to make it: Mary and I have lots of affection for 1980’s generation Bowens monolights. When setting up our studio in 1982, their 800B monolights were the basis of our first really good studio lighting system. Because they were inexpensive, dependable and powerful, we loved shooting with those big, black paint can-shaped monolights.
In 1923, Bowens International was founded as Bowens Camera Service Company, a London-based camera repair company. In June 2016, a German private equity firm, Aurelius Group, bought Bowens and in July 2017, they shut the company down, sadly discontinuing further operations.
How I made this portrait: To make today’s featured photograph, I used one of the now discontinued Bowens’ Gemini 400Rx monolights. The vivacious Pam Simpson looks great wearing red. She really pops out of the background when I photographed her in my 11×15-foot home studio against a Savage Focus Grey seamless paper backdrop that was supported by JTL background stands.
The lighting for this shot could not be simpler: This one-light set-up (see above right setup shot) uses an inexpensive 60-inch white parabolic umbrella that was mounted in shoot-through mode on a Bowens Gemini 400Rx monolight that was used as the key light and placed at camera right. A 30-inch Westcott Basic 5-in-1 Sunlight reflector was placed at camera left and served as fill.
The camera used was a Canon EOS 60D with EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens (at 38mm) with an exposure of 1/125 sec at f/8 and ISO 100. The JPEG file was slightly cropped, then ever-so-lightly lightly retouched to produce the final image you see here..
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat me to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), please click here. And if you do, thanks so much.
My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography is full of tips, tools and techniques for glamour and boudoir photography and includes information on all of the cameras used as well as the complete exposure data for each image. Used books start around thirteen bucks.as I write this. The Kindle version is $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.