Sam and the Farm

Monday

Mar142011

Monday, March 14, 2011 at 8:13PM

Good evening all. These next couple of shots were inspired by Joe McNally, The Strobist and the luck of a perfect overcast day. The weather always seemed to be on the verge of raining making for a dramatic background. Luckily for me Samantha seemed to have a psychic link with me this day. When we started talking about what kinds of stuff we wanted to try this time she emailed me some sample pics and they were exactly what I wanted to try. The idea of getting the flash off camera and getting it in close to the model. These shots were taken with a Nikon D90 and the flash is a Nikon SB-600. I had the flash on the end of a fully extended light stand and had my assistant extending the stand until the flash was about 3 feet from the model. This setup puts the flash in the photo. In the words of Joe McNally it’s what we call a VALS, Voice Activated Light Stand. Having the flash in the shot was no big deal, because of the magic of Photoshop, I was able to remove it post. Not having a more powerful flash I had to get it in nice and close to get the quality of light I was looking for.

This next shot was made possible by a wonderful prop supplied by friend Gina, who makes a killer Chicken Pot Pie. The little blue bench was just awesome. Getting a good pose proved to be a little bit more difficult. Luckily Sam seems to always be able to pull out the perfect pose, and look, to make the shot excellent.

As for what was done in post. The photos were opened in camera raw, of course. The normal sort of adjustments were done IE: Adjusting exposure, color balance and so on. What really makes these photos “Pop” is the Adjustment Brush. I set a good amount of clarity, lowered the exposure to -.10 to -.20 and upped the saturation up quite a bit. Then with the show mask check box selected I was able to know exactly where I was applying the effect. I really recommend using a Wacom tablet for this kind of stuff. You just cant get an exact mask with a mouse. When adding clarity to a photo and the model is female you really don’t want to add any clarity to her. It tends to make the model look a little “dirty” and not very flattering. Now if this is something you are going for then by all means go for it.

This next shot is a bit of a behind the scenes shot. I was lucky to have an assistant for this shot that was very patient and strong. Even though the SB-600 is a little flash, being way out there on the end of the lightstand makes it weigh a lot more than it seems.

Well that’s it for this post. I hope you all enjoy the photos and learned a little something on the way. Please feel free to leave a comment below. So till next time.

Peace.