I was at Loco studio (thanks Kabir) not as the photographer but the model-wannabe.  Kabir wanted to test out his new lighting set and I came in full force bringing in two dresses and my make-up kit. Under Jay’s direction, it took quite a bit to get the lighting right. I guess that’s the problem that you’ll be faced with when you have the choice of 3 strobes  to play with – the power of each strobe, the position, etc. As for me, I had always been comfortable with just one-umbrella as my setup – simple and easy. It wasn’t until recently did I realize the power of an extra hair-light on a portrait. It gives that extra ooomph – like coffee with low-fat milk? Just nice to drink without the added calories? Gosh I’m bad at explaining.. especially when it is 5 in the morning.

Credits goes to Jay for the shot below.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of shooting two of my friends for their personal (and my) personal portfolio. The lighting set-up is very simple. 1 SB-600 through an umbrella amd one SB-800 behind the model as hair-light. I will go into more details about it later but here’s one of the shots.

Please check this post back again as I will include more pictures and commentaries with regards to the shoot.

The whole idea of shooting Isma is not something new. If you’ve seen my earliest work (which I doubt it), you would recognize her as one of the models during my first fashion-inspired shoot. Believe or not, that was back in 2006; Three years down the road, we are now working at the same corporation…which technically means I see her at least five days in a week. Nonetheless, the opportunity only came about on Monday when she so happen to be hanging out at the location of my photo shoot with Ewan (Let’s just say its suppose to be a photoshoot for Ewan, but it became a photoshoot for Ewan and Isma – separately – not both – don’t get any ideas please

Lighting setup, as mentioned above is pretty simple, I had a SB-600 mounted on the brolly (white umbrella) and a SB-800 placed behind the model for hair-light. Due to my excitement, it slipped my mind to take a behind-the-scenes photo to share it with you guys. :S

In this first photo I had Isma sitting on the table. We were trying the Hunchback of Notre Dame pose but we didn’t quite nail the pose. I have a feeling such pose is only achievable with a very thin or lanky model on a standing position – definitely not while sitting down!

Now this second photo is really one of those accidental shot. Recall that I had placed the SB-800 behind the model for the hair-light. When she stood to pose next to the blinds, I had forgotten to move ihe flash accordingly. Thus when I hit the shutter, this is what I get – flare-o-mania. The lighting on the face of the unedited shot was kind of dark, as the umbrella was more towards the right side of the frame. To solve this, I bumped up the exposure and dodge her face in Photoshop.

Typical of most of my portraits, the pictures will go through the certain level of beauty editing. And almost always, I will change the final color tone of the picture. To illustrate this, here’s a before and after of the first shot above.

Hope that gives a mini insider view of a portraiture shoot. Feel free to drop a comment, suggestion or query if you have any!