Juno!!

My recent model blog post made me think back to when I first started shooting creative portraits with a good friend of mine: Juno. So I thought to myself: why not do a blog post focusing on my work with her? It would be interesting to do (esp. for the photographers reading this blog) because a lot of my experimentation with lenses and lighting were done with Juno. So without further ado, here we go... The first image above was taken on our first photoshoot up in Oregon about two years ago! Juno needed some headshots for an acting portfolio and I needed practice with lighting. We did a bunch of window light shots, but nothing was screaming WOW. I was losing natural light fast (it was late afternoon), and decided to try artificial light, placing Juno underneath a large lamp in the dining room. Spot metered for her skin to kill the ambient light. That proved to be the perfect fix.  (Image info: Nikon D200, 50mm 1.8 @ f2.4, ISO 400, 1/45 sec). **Btw, all images in this post are straight off the camera...no processing in Photoshop :)

On our second photoshoot, I decided to focus on the musical side of Juno. She's an amazing guitar player (as many Pacific students can attest to) and it was way cool to photograph her while she was just chillin'. This particular shoot was during my early stages of off-camera lighting. Back then, I thought triggering a flash wirelessly via infrared signal was the coolest thing since cell phones, and I didn't know you could actually control the power on these flashes. This is one of the few decent images from the shoot... (Image info: Nikon D200, 50mm 1.8 @ f2.8, ISO 400, 1/180 sec. SB600 speedlight fired bare camera left)

When I took Jim Flory's studio photography class in my senior year, one of our assignments was to take a headshot using studio lighting. I called up Juno and we were off to the studio. By the time I did this shoot, I was very comfortable with using Nikon's wireless flash system, thanks to valuable experience I gained by shooting a ton of portraits for my photography internship with the Pacific Marketing Division. This internship also gave me the chance to use a wide range of equipment, including the venerable Nikon 24-70mm 2.8, which I used for this shoot. This is how the shot was set up: a gelled SB600 was fired camera left into a shoot-thru umbrella as the main light. Another gelled SB600 was fired bare at camera right as a fill light. Juno is holding a white reflector to fill in the chin shadows. (Image info: (D300, 24-70 @ f8, ISO 400, 1/160 sec)

During the same shoot, Juno and I went outside to take advantage of the deep blue colors of dusk. After a few test shots, this is what we finally got. The set up for this image is a gelled SB600 fired into a shoot thru umbrella at camera right. (Image info: D300, 24-70 @ f4, ISO 400, 1/250 sec)

With spring arriving, Juno and I decided to try out a flower-theme photoshoot. I went with strictly natural light, and instead experimented with depth of field, using a new lens, the Sigma 50mm 1.4. I found out that with a 1.4 lens, you have the ability to take a full-length body shot and still be able to blur the background. (Image info: D300, 50mm 1.4 @ f1.8, ISO 250, 1/1600 sec).

Later in the shoot, I tested the depth of field of my Nikon 80-200mm 2.8, by shooting the lens over 20 feet away from Juno, so I could have the lens zoomed all the way in to the blur the background. (Image info: D300, 80-200 @ f4, ISO 500, 1/1000 sec).  Anyway, this concludes this blog post. I hope it was a bit informative for those photographers reading my blog :) Also, a big thank you to Juno for helping me with my photography! Those gels you gave me are really coming in handy!!