My Sunday Series on Available Light Portraiture continues today with a post about using available light to make an indoor portrait with window light. The featured photograph is of Leslie, a young and sweet model who who had many shoots with me before moving out of state.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
The first time you do a thing is always exciting.—Agatha Christie
Developing a good working relationship with a model begins from the first moment you meet her. Maybe it’s at a casting interview but in most cases it’s when she rings your doorbell for the first time.My bet advice: Beware of first impressions. I remember the first time I met one particular model at the front door of my home, I had no idea of how impressive she would be until I turned on the lights and pointed a camera at her. It was a transformation of the best possible kind.
Ready, Set, Go…
If you haven’t already done this before the model shows up, start by letting her know what kind of photographs you have in mind in making so she understands what’s expected before you even sign the model release. Tip: Always sign the model release before you do anything else, otherwise it may get forgotten. My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography has a several sample model releases that I’ve used over the years, feel free to copy and use any one of them
You might want to show her some of the kinds of shots you;ve made in the past and are looking to make with her, If you’ve done a shoot similar to the one you are working on with her, you might want to send a link to some images on your website or on-line portfolio before the shoot.
How I made this shot: This photograph was as made during my first time shoot with this model. Leslie was just 19 years old when she contacted me expressing her desire to appear in Playboy back when that was a thing. I was honest and told her the odds against that goal were quite high but if she liked I would help her prepare a submission, which we did. Leslie never appeared in Playboy but they sent her a nice letter about her submittal. I was, however, able to get some of her photographs of her published on the cover of several photography magazines.
This image was made during our first session. The first part of the shoot was at nearby park, which was something I did before I had a home studio and any kind of dependable lighting equipment. After the park we moved into my former home’s kitchen that has a North-facing bay window and this image was the 52’nd frame of the 52 images we made for this setup. Some of them were good, a few quite good, but this one was the best. The camera used was a Canon EOS 10D and an EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM lens at 105mm. The available light exposure was 1/80 sec at f/4.5 and ISO 400.
Here’s A Few Tips
Nowhere will your personality, working style and communication skills be more helpful than when you have a model in front of your camera so here’s a few tips for your and maybe her first glamour photography session:
- Provide a private place for her to change and do her makeup. Don’t hang around when she’s changing clothes.
- When working with new models give her some time to warm up. This might be a new experience for her and some beginners may be a little awkward at first and the warm up helps. At the beginning of any portrait or glamour session, I also shoot a few test shots to home in on the exposure settings.
- To keep her interest I’ll show the model what some of shots look like so she has a sense of what the finished images will look like.
- Be sure to talk her through any posing suggestions as you’re shooting and once she gets the idea of what you want, you can easily repeat the series again with different garments. After several shoots with Leslie, it was if she could read my mind.
- If you are doing a shoot in which the model is wearing lingerie or less have a “closed set” environment with only the minimum number of “other” people watching. Based on many bad experiences, I prefer that number to be zero.
Work quickly and professionally to minimize the time she spends waiting. If you are fiddling with lights and seem disorganized, the model will lose her enthusiasm for the shoot and become bored. This boredom will show in the photographs and make the session a wasted one.
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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 and lenses used as well as the complete exposure data for each image. New copies are $45.08 with and used copies available from Amazon for for around forty-one bucks, as I write this. The Kindle version is $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.