Friday, November 22, 2013


I have missed you!

You may have noticed I was "away" for a while...hopefully you missed me as well :)
I have definitely missed creating new blog posts & sharing them with you...
One of the more important reasons I was so quiet (besides keeping busy with photo assignments) was being pregnant & now the proud mother of a six months old beautiful baby girl :)
No one told me that one of the things time does when you have a baby is take quantum leaps instead of the regular 24/7...for example, I meant to take little baby pictures of her & only got around to doing it now(!). Moving to a new house & having everything in boxes didn't help either but I finally dug out a basic light setup & did a little test.
I set up shop in the basement (great high ceiling & windows) & did this around midnight when the little peanut refused to go to sleep & was seeking creative entertainment...I love having an in house model! Just like the big fashion houses ;)

This is a simple setup you can do anywhere (almost), I used a painted backdrop from Denny but you can use a solid color, brick wall or anything else you see fit.

The light setup consists of a main light, a hair/back light & a reflector.

I used two Dynalite heads (my favorite light packs!), the main light has a five foot octagon soft box with grid (Photoflex).
The hair/back light also has a honeycomb grid on (#20) to control light spill, it is mounted on a boom arm..
On the opposite side of the main light you have a simple round silver reflector ( Westcott).

I used the teddy bear as a stand in for the youngster since he has way more patient & spent a little time adjusting the lights, I could have done some finer tuning but hubby/assistant was getting restless...hey, I can't get too picky at that time of night, lol!

Here are the stages of directing the lights where you want them to go:
First you want the main light to illuminate your subject & spill onto  the background (since I didn't use a dedicated back light).

Then you want to make sure your hair/back light falls on your subject just right & give a little separation from the background (I could have flagged it a bit more if I wasn't so rushed! :)).


The reflector is filling the other side of the subject but the intensity will be determined by you - move it closer for a brighter look or further away for a soft fill of the shadows  -  I have them about equally distanced from my teddy.


If you are familiar with my work, you know I like to use many more lights when I shoot, being a control freak pays off but since I wanted something simple, quick & easy this setup worked just fine.

Here are a few un-edited takes:

cutie pie photo shoot

The entire actual shoot lasted less then 10 min & that includes having the puppy girl topple backwards & trying to eat the floor (roll up from Denny) but it was a lot of fun & I can't wait to do it again!

After picking out a few of my favorites (sooo hard since I love them all) I headed to Photoshop to do some creative "dodge & burn" & have some fun, I love the look & feel of old photos...so I was playing around with different textures & colors, this can literally take forever since the options are endless & at some point I just have to be happy with the result & just let it be :)

Here are a few of my edited images:









 You can use this basic, simple light setup to shoot pretty much anything you like - still life, people, pets, self portraits, etc.
Outside, on location the sun can be your back light (or main light), then use an on/off camera flash to be your second light (either the main or fill light) & of course remember to set up that reflector :)

Would love to hear from you so let me know what you think & definitely share your work with us here!

Happy to be back!

6 comments:

  1. awwwww first and foremost congrats she is beautiful!! this set up is cool the photo came out awesome glad to have you back!

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  2. Thanks!!! glad you are still here :) how is your awesome magazine doing? you can post a link for us here, I'm sure more people are interested :)

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  3. Absolutely beautiful. Well done.........
    . And the photography is nice too:)

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  4. You and your family have truly been blessed. She's beautiful: ) I miss you and wish you and your family well.

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  5. Thank you Chris! Same to all of you :) How is your photography coming along?

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