Behind the scenes video
We made pretzel shapes, or at least we tried… We embraced the weird and the crooked early in this session because I wanted to avoid the classic poses I have done so many times. This is yet another dance photography portrait session at home… with a twist!
It’s hard to steer away from habits. When I am tired, lazy sometimes, and when I am pressured by tight delays and have to work fast, this is what happens. I take my go-to light setups out of the bag, and I shoot the poses I know and master because I know I can get instant results.
This kills any creativity in me if there is still any left… So in order to save me from hating my work later down the road, I sometimes force myself not to rely on those reflexes. We avoided the easy way, even if it could end up in an epic failure.
We almost succeeded on this one. I slightly changed the positions of Virginie, my dancer of the day. Asked her to improvise a bit in between takes. Changed the position of the hands and feet, and thanks to her talent we were able to capture a few moments that kind of stand out from my regular dance portraits.
It’s a simple, straightforward session. A backdrop, very little space, and we used 3 lights. I am still rocking the Fujifilm GFX 100s and the GF50mm f3.5. I am sculpting my lights with the Phottix Raja softboxes and added a tiny bit of smoke for the last images.
For some of these images, I only used one light (the overhead) or set the ones on the sides at the lowest power possible, just enough to keep those details.
I am again shooting in the shadows, looking for contrast and drama. In the past, I would have added another light facing her at a 45 degrees angle camera left or right or anything to raise those shadows.
Now I am lighting from the back, from the sides, overhead, or all of that combined.
What are you currently working on? Drop your latest projects in the comments, or portfolio… I am curious to see who is following me and the type of work you do. I also asked on IG so you can share your work in my post there.
My final and last video made with the Kinefinity MAVO edge will drop tomorrow on my 2nd YouTube channel… The behind the scenes video will of course be shared on my channel and available on the blog, so stay tuned. I personally haven’t started 2022 yet, I am kind of taking my time, chilling… not really… But I still have a few projects from 2021 that are not completed, so until they are, I will not jump into anything new yet. I guess that I will catch you in my next post, until then, have a greatone!