final portrait shot

Final portrait shoot

Equipment :

Light metre reading f16 / everything in focus

Mamiya rz

Delta 100 film

Black backdrop

Beauty dish

Prolight

Before shoot day we had many portrait workshops where we experimented with lighting, expression etc.....

This is one of my contact sheets showing this....

The day for my Body shoot had finally approached, and I was nervous to say the least. My most concern was model. As soon as Josh, my assistant, had arrived we started to build the set and the lighting. I used the same light set up in previous workshops but added a new tool that I had never used before a beauty dish. As I had a simple lighting plan i was recommended to use what's called a beauty dish. When using this tool I thought it produced more abrupt shadow edge transfers better I think then using a soft box. I think overall the beauty dish produced more diffused quality of light than a standard reflector , so was perfect for my style of shoot.

Before my model arrived I did some test strips to gain confidence and understanding. I used a high aperture of f16 as I wanted everything in focus, defining all features and expression. Once contact sheets were done, luckily all I had to change was my lighting control, and where my model sat, due to shadows and a dark background. Once completed I waited for my model and began shooting.

For my second roll of film I had trouble centring the model in the frame, I think due to the background being black I found it difficult to find the frame in the camera. I also thought the background still looked to dark, therefore moved the model forwards and turned the light up.

After test shots and contact prints i finally had my final shot.