Typical test shoot with guts ´n results!

Hello folks! 

How have you been? Still worried about the bacon flu? Or what´s the trendy new disease? Well, I´ll tell you what mine is: portfolio building fever! I have used all available time (well, almost anyway) for shooting new pictures for my book and trying to come up/design some more original ideas. I have some things up my sleeve, but more about those at a later date!

This time I want to post some behind the scenes peeks from my latest test shoot (the guts) and some of the final images (the results). On this occasion I shot with splendid model Katja S. from Fondi Models, talented and trustworthy make-up artist Jenni Halonen and got assistance from ever-eager Milo Vainionmäki who is also a great shooter himself! Milo was there to shoot his own test with a model from casting house portfolio.fi, and had time to help us out before that!

So I arrived at the spot where Katja was already waiting. We had a nice cup of coffee and halfway trough the mugs were blessed with the precense of Jenni, who instantly demanded for us to hurry it up and get to work!!!! 

Only kidding, though... Anyway, Jenni brought all the good stuff she uses for her craft, and started working after we changed views about the colours and style of the make-up. In most cases like this, if I don´t have a really strong vision about the make-up and there is no client to dictate everything, I tend to let the MUA do the heavy lifting in her/his department. I figure they know the craft and I am just next to them to shout out ideas.

 

Even though it really is  a pleasure to watch good people work, at this point I faded to look for a place to start the shoot itself, and indeed found a nice spot, too. So after the make-up and hair were ready, we headed to the seventh floor to make some images!

Well, as luck would have it, the first setup was a total bust, so I had to wing it again! I turned my original setup around and handed a small nikon flash to Milo, who was more than happy to act as a voice activated lightstand for me. I used a trick I just came up with the day before (sure it has been used a million times): I held those little rosco filter samples infront of the lens for a nice, flared colour effect. In the below picture (on the left to be clear) you can see how thoroughly excited Milo was to be a part of this amazing creation:

And this is one of the results from that setup. It was quite nifty I have to say. And the pictures came together really quick. This was the first frame of the setup.

After this we decided to play with a chair we found from a room nearby. I wanted to try and create a medium soft key light with an even fill for a really clean and simple shot, where the models posing would play the major role. In this shot, by Milo, you can see the lights I used.

In the first frame there is only the key light. It is here just to show you how it looks like without the fill, but I also kind of like the gloomy look.

I like to use very even light at some point on every test shoot I do. I do this mainly because it gives the models the option to pose freely, basically in any direction and any way they like. Often it also gives me a sort of a break from guiding and shouting out directions. It´s just a couple of minutes at most, but it sometimes helps alot, especially if there is no direct plan for the next setup. This kind of pictures are also great for beginner models because they look natural and give a very realistic look for their, perhaps first, model book. 
  So here is the version with the fill light on:

Very even, some might say boring, but it´s usefull for them and I can use the break for sure.After this setup, we noticed that the actual studio space where Milo was scheduled to shoot was now available and since his model would not be ready for another half an hour or so, we decided to invade and shoot some frames in there too! I wanted to be able to make a couple of different setups in the 30 minute period, so I setup three lights all ready to go. 

  For this first image, I used a strobe with a beauty dish as key on cam right side, about 30-40 degrees from camera axis, angled down at a similar angle, a small sotfbox on another strobe about 45 degrees behind Katja on cam right side and a biiig styrofoam board on cam left side of Katja as a fill card. That one was held by Jenni, who looked absolutelly delighted to do so:

And here is the first picture. It is very simple, but again, I also like to cater to the needs of the model:

Next, it was the easiest thing in the world to get in close and ask Jenni and Katja to jointly hold the big ´ol reflector under Katjas chin. So there was another shot with a sort of a clamshell setup:

From there, it was easy as one two three to fetch what used to be the background/kicker light and aim it right at the camera from behind Katjas head:

We still had some time before Milo was takingover the studio, so we made one more setup. I still used the dish as the key light, but moved Katja right next to the BG paper and guided eager reflector holder Jenni to accompany Katja to her right side with the reflector. Then I added the softboxed light as a sort of a near-axis fill, meaning it came from the approximate angle of the camera, from cam low left to be exact. Here is the result:

It was time to leave the confinement of the studio behind and head on down the hallway! I was in studio mode by now however, so even though we made a hasty decision to shoot in the first little indoor alley we could find, I made a kind of a clean "studio" look for these frames too. But after Katja had changed her attire and before we could shoot, it was time for some pressured glue:

The setup was one of two lights: softbox on cam left as key, and a bare sb80dx opposite to that as a kicker.

I toned this one a bit cooler:

 

After these IMO marvellous poses by Katja, we were all feeling finished for the day. Personally, I was thrilled with how smoothly this shoot went, especially because our initial plan had been shot to hell by schedule failures and we basically just had to wing it for the whole shoot. The thing about these tests is that you have to be in charge about everything because it´s your project, you know? You are the director and you have to keep it all together. And that becomes harder after each un-planned thing that happens.

We were already out of the building and in our civilian clothes when I noticed that there was some nice light in the tram we were all sitting in, so I snapped a few recreational frames. I think they came out pretty swell actually:

I wanna thank Katja and Jenni for a great afternoon and I look forward to working with both of you again. Oh yeah, and thanks to Milo, too, for keeping us entertained for the first part of the day and for the making-of shots as well!

I do hope this has been even remotely interesting and/or usefull for someone out there!

Have a great weekend!

...

Katja S. from  Fondi Models