Shooting it: All I want for Christmas

It’s Christmas, so I will upload some setup info for one of my favorite Christmas shots! This is a session for MBS Japan (Mainichi Housou) and exactly for a TV show called “Waku-ari” where I participated then. The idea of the producers was to shoot a girl in the Christmas atmosphere, before a date or something like this. That’s why I chose that location some illuminations in Umeda in Chayamachi.

Here are some technical details about the lighting I’ve been using:

Strobist info:

580EXII with Shoot-through Umbrella – Camera Right (Up)
SB-26 with Shoot-through Umbrella – Camera Right (Down)
Gelled SB-26 for the hair – Behind her
Triggered by Pocket Wizard II Plus
You can’t see on the setup photo only the backlight with the orange filter!

Background

Before I write more about the setup, some more information about the location and time of shooting, it was night and actually it was pretty cold, so I couldn’t have the model with me all the time. I had to do the setup first, while she was waiting for me in the caffee shop next to us, and when I finished some test shots with a guy who was there to shoot the video, then we call the model, and do the photoshoot quickly. I wanted to make her comfortable, and I think that made her relaxed for the shoot.

Here we go to the lighting, I’m using 2 umbrellas Clamshell Lighting in the photo. It was pretty dark, and I wanted to have some nice soft light on her beautiful face, so using only one umbrella wouldn’t give me that result. I set up the upper umbrella at 1/8 power, and the lower one at about 1/16 power. Then to get a nice exposure of the background illuminations I hat to shoot at 1/60 second shutter speed, of course I was tweaking that during the shoot.

Then I also have a backlight behind the model. I like doing that sometimes to kinda separate more the model from the background, and I think it worked well in this shot. I put some CTO (color temperature orange) filter on the back flash, so we can get that fun color on her hair. We don’t have any fan or wind to blow her hair, she is doing it by herself, while she was turning around and I shoot the moment when she was facing me!

I am triggering the main light (Canon 580EXII) by Pocket Wizard II Plus, that’s what I usually use as a wireless trigger. All the other flashes have a built-in optical slave function, usually when I buy a flash that’s one of the first things I am searching for! That’s why I love the old Nikon SB-26s, as I said in the previous articles I already got a bunch of them, and I would buy another one anytime I see it available in some second hand camera shop!

I have uploaded the video from the TV show to YouTube, just click on the text below to watch it:

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