Finally! Playtime with the New Toys! « Mikey Rap Photography

At long last, I have gotten to play with my new camera, as well as my other new toys. For a while i have been trying to find a model who is free who would humor me in just going someplace and taking some shots. Finally I decided to ask Kari, since I knew that UWI exams were finishing. Luckily enough, she was available. Even luckier, she is now dating this guy called Brook. Brook is bajan born but has spent quite a bit of his life in Toronto but now he's back in Bim. I met Brook about a month ago and was actually thinking about doing this same shoot with him instead of a female model. Well it just goes to show that everything happens in good time, and this time I got two models for the price of one! (Well tbh, for the price of non as we were all just doing this for fun)

Location this time was once again the St. Lucy Prison. For those of you who are wondering, yes it is my favorite place at the moment, and I always get great shots here. This shoot I was practicing how to shoot for black and white, therefore that meant that I had to look more at what the light was doing and how it was being cast. I was looking at getting some shots with a lot of contrast in them (i.e. a large range between the highlights and the shadows).  So we head off to the prison, myself, Kari, Brook, and Kari's best friends, Karla..

So this first series was shot to at the entrance of one of the buildings (as if you couldn't tell). First shot, pure natural light. With no manipulation of light, i.e. no use of reflectors or anything.

I used one of my new "softbox umbrellas" to light Kari from the front, as her face would have been in shadows without it, and there would not be much depth to the light as the light source would have been directly behind her.

A lonely reflector was used for these next few shots, placed on the right of the camera, just to lighten up the shadows.

Eventually I got bored with Kari and threw Brook in for a few photos. Same lighting technique as above was used.

And then we brought Kari back in for a shot. Those of you who have Liked my facebook page will recognize this shot as the preview shot.

For the next shots, I decided to shoot from outside and keep Kari in the door frame. I had the intention of giving her a hair light, but whilst shooting, we moved around to capture different angles (naturally) and out popped this happy accident. She was also light up from the front using a reflector.

And another shot, just without the hairlight attempt.

So you probably won't believe but the next shot is indeed just natural light. I was actually shooting over Brook's shoulder while he held the reflector over his head.

The next set speak for themselves. Shot right next to the door, which was the light source.

This shot had the softbox on camera right to lighten the shadows.

For these, the softbox was camera left.

I hid the softbox in the corner of the room, on camera left, again, just to lighten up the shadows.

and then we added Brook, and that's when things really got hot.

Again, all natural light, coming from the doorway behind me.

So for these next shots, the main light was definitely the softbox.

And to give Kari a break, Brook got a bit of a solo session.

I thought this was funny….

So by this tell (well, actually…. quite a while before) we were well tired, hot and bothered. So we headed to the beach, after making a pitstop for a drink! Mental note: Take a cooler with ice and drinks, especially when shooting in the middle of the day! Anyways, after those two had a frolic in the ocean, we took a few more shots.

These shots had the softbox as close to the models as possible. Tat is the downfall to using speedlights in the middle of the day, as I have been warned. They are not really that powerful to compete against direct sunlight. However, I still think we got some good results.

So there you have it. i think that this shoot went really well and I'm definitely very happy with the results. I was hoping to get myself back on the radar with this shoot. Hope I've managed to do that