Either from a artistic or a commercial point of view, sometimes you want to show people in the shot, sometimes you don’t. Photo editors can be very specific with their requests “I’d like an image of x at dawn with no people” or “I need a landscape shot of z during the day showing tourists visiting but no identifiable faces”.
Model – Talisa Galarza Makeup and Hair – Mallika Sharma of Glam Girl Sharma Pentax 645D Pentax 150mm Lighting – Charcoal background. Beauty dish powered by Profoto Pro-7a as the main light. Small softbox as low fill. Medium size strip softboxes on both sides adding rimlight (powered by Profoto compacts). A fifth compact aimed at the background. Strobes triggered with PocketWizards.
Joseph was always the second strongest kid working on the farm. The other boy was the son of Jonathan and Martha Kent.
First image from a fantastic shoot with Okinawan model Aino. Model – Aino Shimoji MUA & Hair – Mallika Sharma Pentax 645D HD PENTAX-D FA645 MACRO 90mmF2.8ED AW S Lighting – Charcoal background. Beauty dish powered by Profoto Pro-7a as the main light. Small softbox as low fill. Medium size strip softboxes on both sides adding rimlight (powered by Profoto compacts). A fifth compact aimed at the background. Strobes triggered with PocketWizards.
Spent yesterday photographing a new portfolio for model Leia Heider. I always start these shoots with a simple natural look. It’s something agencies and potential clients want to see, and should be updated regularly. Throw on a jacket and you have a classic look, that wouldn’t be out of place in an advertisement for The Gap. The image is toned slightly to give it a different feel to the white T-shirt image. Model – Leia Heider MUA – Summer Johnson-Makeup Artist Pentax 645D HD PENTAX-D FA645 MACRO 90mmF2.8ED AW S
Model – Talisa Galarza Makeup and Hair – Mallika Sharma of Glam Girl Sharma Pentax 645D HD PENTAX-D FA645 MACRO 90mmF2.8ED AW S Lighting – Charcoal background. Beauty dish powered by Profoto Pro-7a as the main light. Small softbox as low fill. A medium size strip softboxes on both sides adding rimlight (powered by Profoto compacts). A fifth compact aimed at the background. Strobes triggered with PocketWizards.
I was lucky enough to test out a prototype of the lens a couple of months ago. It’s big, heavy, and a lot of money. It’s also tack sharp, and with shake reduction built in, quite possibly the perfect travel lens for a 645D shooter. As I have an upcoming trip that would be ideally suited to this lens, I bought one last week, and have been using it both in and out of the studio. Here’s another image of Rie in the field of cosmos flowers. Camera settings were 1/200 f4.5 ISO400 I shot the image handheld. The bokeh in the background looks great and the sharpness of the image is excellent. When you open the image up at 100% you can see how I took the photo by looking in her eye. There’s me in the middle holding the camera. To my right is the farmer who wandered past and was press-ganged into holding a reflector. My friend, Shawn Miller, is standing just out of shot. He’s holding a Lastolite diffusion panel, the …
Starting February 13 in Tokyo, Pentax is having an exhibition of images shot with the new K5IIs camera. 15 photographers are involved and I was lucky enough to be asked to be one of them. Pentax selected a couple of my recent studio images, one of Alexis, and one of Sachi. I’ve spent a month working with both the 645D and the K5IIs side by side so I have similar images from both cameras. From February 13th to 25th the exhibition will be at Ring Cube in Ginza, Tokyo. This is the Ricoh / Pentax Gallery that overlooks one of Tokyo’s most famous intersections. From March 6th to 11th the exhibition will be shown at the Pentax Forum in West Shinjuku. Thanks to Pentax for selecting the images, to Alexis and Sachi for modeling, and Felicia Lee and Summer Johnson for hair and makeup.
A fantastic portfolio shoot with model Aika Wauke. I photographed four different outfits, and kept with a grey or black background throughout, as Aika already had enough white background catalog images. Summer Johnson did her usual impeccable job with makeup and Aika was great to work with. This was my last shoot with the new 645D 90mm macro lens that I had on loan. After the final pics were taken, I sent the lens and some sample images back to Pentax in Tokyo. I also photographed the session with the new K5IIs which produced excellent results. A blog post with a comparison of images taken with the 645D and the K5IIs will appear at some point in the future.
Shaked Barzilay put together a short video showing James and I taking some portraits at the dojo of Masakazu Kinjo 9th dan Uechi Ryu Karate and Ryukyu Kobudo. You can see photos from the shoot here. Thanks very much Shaked.
TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography 