Shooting it: Beast in Me

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One of the fun things for me to do since I started photography a few years ago is to just get my gear, go out in the middle of the night, and shoot myself… alone in weird situations! Well, here is another shot from this series! And to make it clear, it has nothing to do with Halloween, just coincidence to upload it at the same time!

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Background

Ok, so this shot was actually a part of a project of my good friends and awesome hair-makeup artists Yui Hirosawa and Toshimi Nakanish. Usually they would ask me to shoot the works they are doing, but that day, they asked me to be model for the project, which was something I really like! Actually being a model is a really good thing for a photographer since you can learn a lot, how to communicate with your models! That is why I take every opportunity to be on the other side of the camera as well! And even on this day, there was a photographer to do the photoshoot, the photos I’m uploading I too by myself, leaving the studio with this make up, and shooting them after I got to my home! Here are some off-shots too!

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Lighting

My main lighting idea for this shoot was to shoot with 2 lights, and I was using a 80×60 Gridded softbox as main light, and a shoot-through umbrella as some fill light from the opposite side of the softbox, I often do this type of lighting when I want to shoot quickly! Basically the softbox main light is about a stop stronger from the fill light, why… just that was my taste!

Camera and lens choice: I’m shooting with Canon 5DMII, and my lens is Canon EF 135mm f/2.0 L USM, you can see a gallery with other photos from it if you click on the name!

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Strobist Info:

Canon 580EXII in a 80×60 Gridded Softbox – Camera right

Nikon SB-26 – in a Shoot-Through Umbrella – Camera left (behind)

Softbox flash triggered by Pocket Wizard II Plus, and umbrella flash triggered by optical slave

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Here are 2 examples from this setup:

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Second shooting spot

After these photos I decided to change the angle a little, and since there were some nice containers around there they were about to be my next background! Almost same setup for these photos too, softbox as main light, and shoot-through umbrella as some fill light! For the 2 shots I’m uploading one of them does not have the umbrella, I guess it was taken when i was testing without it, I don’t remember!

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Strobist Info:

Canon 580EXII in a 80×60 Gridded Softbox – Camera left

Nikon SB-26 – in a Shoot-Through Umbrella – Camera left (behind)

Softbox flash triggered by Pocket Wizard II Plus, and umbrella flash triggered by optical slave

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Shooting by yourself!

As I already mentioned, when I’m taking these photos I’m all alone, so I have to do everything by myself! In this case I’m using self timer – 10 seconds to take them, since at that time I did not have a remote trigger, which I find so useful now! Here comes the issue… can you imagine what pain it is to run back and forth guess more than hundred times, to check out if you are in focus… lol! Yeah, I had to do that, because I was shooting with quite open aperture!

So to get myself on focus, first I was trying to fix the spot I was standing on, but it was still difficult, because the DOF was I think about 1-2 cm with that aperture! Well… that was a good way to keep myself warm in the middle of the winter outside, don’t you think? 😉

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Here are 2 images from this spot too. As you can see one of them has the umbrella fill and the other one is just with the 80×60 softbox![/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1451″ css_animation=”left-to-right” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”800×416″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”1452″ css_animation=”right-to-left” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”800×533″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]

IN THE END

Next article I will be writing is about a location I have been shooting pretty often recently, and how you can get different images at the same place! The place is the abandoned Maya hotel, which I guess many people who are following my work are aware of!

And now, I am preparing a series of new articles on some general topics, let me know which one of them you want to see first, so I get it ready earlier! Also other ideas are welcome too! Here are some of them:

Portraits at night / Lens article (I guess 135/2) / Portraits in the rain / Use of gels / Using backlight / One light setups / Shoots with just one umbrella / General shooting portraits / Can cheap lenses make good photos / Swing the camera shots / Using snoots / Shaped bokeh / … or any other idea welcome, post it in the comments, and I will see if I am able to write about it!

Of course I have lots of other shots, I will be writing, so I hope I can do it at least 2 times per week, so when you have time check it out again!

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