Equipment:
- Photoflex OctoDome®: Medium
- (2) Speedotron Explorers
- (3) Speedotron 102 Heads
- Grid Set
- Nikon D4 with 24-70 2.8 lens
After seeing some Halloween party shots
of Jade on her Facebook feed I knew she was a dead ringer for Wednesday Addams
from the TV show The Addams Family. It was one of my favorite shows as a kid. I asked
Jade if she wanted to play Wednesday for an afternoon and she jumped at the
chance to play dress up!
I had originally planned to shoot Jade
in a number of locations around Los Angeles, but with the winds from the beach
kicking up, the roof of my building proved to be the best location to shoot.
The roof of my building is becoming one of my favorite spots to shoot here in
LA. There are so many textures up there and tons of turn of the century rusted
nooks – plus you can’t beat the view!
I really liked the idea of shooting Jade
right as the sun was setting. TWILIGHT: that moment between light
and dark when all the freaks come out to play! I also wanted to use the intense
California sunset as a back light for the shot.
This shot is heavily back lit with two
grid splitting the 1500w/s Speedotron Explorer Packs on full plus the sun. I
placed the first grid directly behind Jades body at shoulder height to create a
rim light, but to also create a sun burst for when she moved slightly left
exposing the raw head behind her. The other grid was placed camera right in
order to separate her body from the dark tree line this heavily lit shot was
creating. in order to defeat the ambient light we needed to be at F22.
I used a medium Photoflex Octadome 3
placed almost even with Jades face directly ninety degrees camera left for my
key light then dialed it up to F22 on a separate Explorer Pack to meet the
backlights exposure.
After getting things lit we waited for
the sun to drop just below Jades head and began our shoot.
This shoot was a lot of fun for both Jade and I. I love using this combination of Photoflex and Speedotron. The wind did find us during this shoot blowing over the key light as we were shooting, but it was not a problem due the extreme durability of both products. I simply dusted things off, tied the pack to the key light stand (yes you can use your pack as a sand bag) and got back to work.
What a great afternoon!
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