My Sunday Series on Available Light Portraiture is taking a detour today today with a look at using available light with a major addition of an LED light source too create this stair-step portrait of Misa Lynn.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.–Helmut Newton
These days I have an in-home studio but in the not-too-distant past, I shot all of my glamour images in my home, working mostly with window light in the kitchen, dining room and loft area outside my home office. While I may have an 11×15 home studio located in my basement, sometimes I want to give a portrait an on-location look. That’s why I still occasionally shoot in spaces around my house, especially for some of my glamour photographs.
Outside the Studio
When working outside the studio, I don’t get fussy about posing my subjects. I just watch what they do naturally and try to have them interact with their environment in a way that’s physically comfortable for them. To show them how I want her to stand or sit, I’ll usually put myself in the pose to show them what I have in mind but allow them to give me their interpretation of that pose and more often than not it’s better than my original idea.
Once the model is in a pose, I select camera angles that showcase her good features minimizing anything she may be self-conscious about, even if I believe she may be wrong about it. In this case, Misa Lynn wanted to show off her legs. But you know that the best pose is one that looks good to you and the subject.
One way I like to increase communications between myself and a subject is to show her some of the images on my DSLR or mirrorless camera’s LCD screen during the shoot. I don’t show every shot, just the ones I really like.
Most subjects respond positively to this but for others this can break their concentration and you have to start all over again. If this happens to you, don’t show them any photos until you’re finished with a specific pose or clothing change. When it does work, and that’s most of the time, seeing how great she looks gives her confidence in your abilities and makes the session progress smoother.
How I made this portrait: Misa Lynn was a blonde when I first photographed her but she showed up for this session with brown hair! This portrait was shot in the foyer of my home on the steps leading up to the second floor. The lighting was a combination of the ambient daylight from a second-floor South-facing window acting as fill with the main light provided by a Rotolight Anova LED light that was placed as you see in the above right setup shot. The camera used was a Nikon D600 with Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR lens at 80mm. The exposure was 1/80 sec at f/4.5 and ISO 800 with a plus two-thirds stop exposure compensation.
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Interested in learning more about posing? My book Posing for Portrait & Glamour Photography has 160 pages where you can learn all of my posing techniques. Kindle copies of the book are available from Amazon.com for $29.99, as I write this.