11th April 2016

Background

This is the follow-up shoot with Flow. The first one was at the South Bank in London. This one would be indoors in a dance studio. This would give Flow a chance to show-off a few of her moves.

The shoot

We were on the back foot before we started because the studio we wanted was having its floor replaced. Flow had to organise another one. Even then other people were after it, but Flow had booked in so it was ours for the next two hours.

In this shoot I was using a tall narrow softbox to diffuse the light from one flashgun. I was looking forward to seeing how it performed. I was a little concerned the light might be too diffused to create any meaningful shadows. If this were the case I could always remove one of the baffles to make the light a bit more directional. In the end it worked fine.

Once we got going the rest of the shoot went well. We were interupted by Kit when he came down from an audition upstairs during a break and in search of cake. Flow is one of the few people who can under Kit and can interpret what he is talking about.

1. Flow is lit by only one light from the left and another from the right. The softbox creates some beautiful shadows bringing out the shape of her arms and hiding most of her left cheek. The light from the right only glances along the right part of the left arm. Nice diagonal too.

2. Here the second light to the right has been powered up. It is a naked flashgun. You can see the distinct shadow on the floor compared to the one behind her. If that light was not there the back of Flow's arms and legs would merge into the darkness like the shot above.

3. A variation from the previous shot. Notice how the shadows help define her muscle tone and creates an 'S' shape on her left cheek showing us her cheek bone structure.

5. When I got this shot home, I cropped it so the angle of Flow's arms followed the strongest diagonal from corner to corner. The lick of light on the back of her head stops it from merging into the black.

6. This time the other diagonal is being utilised. I love the shape of Flow's fingers of her left hand.

7. A change of clothes. These are trousers with a high slits. This photograph was cropped so arms go along a strong diagonal.

8. A great pointed foot. Really straight and flat. Check-out how the lighting brings out the muscle tones of Flow's back. You can see where the strength of the anaconda hug comes from.

9. A small mound of talcum powder on the foot works wonders creating the sense of movement in a static forum.

10. Flow adding a bit more movement into the shoot. I love the way the legs of the trousers splay outwards. Just want we wanted.

Technical

I used a full frame camera in manual mode with a 24-70mm lens all of the shoot. Two flashguns were used with a tall narrow softbox pointed towards her front and a naked one to the right of photographs. They were both in manual mode and calibrated early on in the shoot.

Post processing

Most of the post processing was done in Lightroom. A bit of cropping, lens correction and black and white renders. I had to remove a small area of light that reflected off the mirrors behind the curtains.

The rest was performed in Photoshop. This was mostly dodging and burning (lightening and darkening specific areas), sharpening the detail, blurring (and the deemphasising detail in the back or foreground) and removing blemishes from the photograph.

Conclusion and thanks

Another successful shoot completed and I am very happy with the lighting set up it did what I wanted it to. There is a slight variation of it I would like to try, but that can wait. Flow was very pleased with the results. Thanks for Kit for coming down and making us laugh.

Please leave a comment below and let me know what you thought of the photographs especially if you are related to Flow or know her well. I would be interested to read your thoughts.