Today’s Post by Joe Farace
This 3-layer Mexican Dip is an easy appetizer or snack for any occasion. Whether you’re having a party or settling in to watch TV, you can enjoy it with your favorite chips.
When choosing backdrops for portraiture, there are lots of options, starting with the material used. Canvas backdrops are better for permanent installations but they can be expensive. There was a time when I exclusively used Canvas but that was long ago and I can’t remember the last time I used one.
Muslin is a closely woven cloth that’s produced from corded cotton yarn but what’s endeared it to photographers is that it’s lightweight. Nowadays many companies also offer wrinkle-free fabric backdrops that can literally be smacked into place with sewn-in Velcro fasteners. Or in the case of today’s Three Layer Background concept…
The Three Layer Background and how it came to be: I’ve written many times about my “falling apart JTL background stands” and it’s still falling apart—faster it seems. At my recent shoot with Erin Valakari, the left upright kept collapsing during the shoot sending the Savage Infinity vinyl backdrop askew. In anticipation for Tuesday’’s shoot with Erin, (canceled because of weather) Mary decided to bypass the background stands and came up with the idea of the “3-layer” concept.
She started by selecting a Westcott 5 x 6.5-foot, 2-in-1 collapsible backdrop that was leaned against the back wall of the studio. In front of that she placed a 5 x 6-foot Savage Collapsible/Reversible Background attached to one of Savage’s useful and versatile background stands. To complete the three layers, one of Silverlake Photo’s Colorsmack backdrops was clipped over top the Savage backdrop. Her idea was for me to work from front-to-back and select the model’s outfit that worked with the front most background and then as the model changed her wardrobe I would remove the backdrops, keeping in mind that both collapsible backdrops were reversible.
How I made this Portrait: My initial test shoot of my three-layer background was snowed out but this portrait of Alice was made with her posing in front of the same Silverlake Photo’s “Sweet Apple” Colorsmack backdrop that is the outer layer of my three-layer background sandwich. This portrait was originally made for a lighting equipment review for the print edition of Shutterbug, but the editor decided, for some reason, not to run this particular image when the review ran in the magazine.
I photographed Alice using a Multiblitz Profilux 250 monolight with Westcott’s 45-inch Round Halo Mono softbox attached and placed at camera right. A 32-inch round reflector was then placed at camera left. The portrait was shot using a Nikon D800 and the 24-120mm f/4G ED-IF lens (at 92mm) with an exposure of 1/160 sec at f/9 and ISO 100.
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My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography is full of tips, tools and techniques for glamour and boudoir photography with new copies available from Amazon for $24.32, as I write this. Used copies start at the hard-to-beat price price starting at nine bucks and the Kindle version is $19.99 for those who prefer a digital format.