I love photographing people, even though I often get hired to shoot food and architecture. So it goes without saying, that when I have three beautiful ladies and a makeup artist I know it’s going to be a good day. This post is about one such shoot. I don’t always have a makeup artist present on the set, but when I do, it’s always such a huge boost to model’s confidence and looks, which results in less post-processing work for me. The main idea for this photoshoot was to have portraits done for all three girls with unique and interesting makeup and on different colorful backgrounds to be featured on MUA’s and models’ professional profiles. And as it always happens, the shoot went well beyond what we initially planned. We ended up shooting more themes and only stopped because of time constrains.
Nothing ever goes without a hitch. In fact, if everything goes smoothly during my photoshoot I brace for a big mess-up at the end. So all the little complications during shoots are usually welcome, this way I know the end result will be nice and entirely worth it. This shoot started with a relatively large mistake on my part. I typically have tons of memory cards scattered all around, so if I lose one or two I always have a backup. This time, however, when I was preparing all of my equipment for the shoot I’ve decided to get all of my cards out to transfer data and format them properly. Needless to say, I completely forgot about the stack of memory cards until I pulled up to the studio, which is an hour away from my home. Worst case scenario I could’ve used our video equipment (which uses SD cards) to do the shoot, but then we wouldn’t have any behind the scenes video to share with you. Besides, I really like my full frame camera. Thankfully we found a volunteer who drove to a nearby big name store and bought the last way overpriced CF card. Crisis averted!
The first make-up look took about 3 hours to finish, so I started shooting available girls with their “normal” looks. As usual, I ended up coming up with themes on the spot and matching them with the outfits models brought with them. Thankfully Studio 212 had plenty of props to make this possible. And most importantly, we had a lot of fun and a very productive day. I would like to give big thanks to my models: Ksenia, Alla and Natalia. A huge credit goes to the Makeup Artist Olga Khizver for doing an awesome work. You can check out her facebook page HERE. Check out our behind the scenes video below to see how all of these photos were made.
As for the equipment, I’ve used my trusty Canon 5D mark II as the main body. Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L lens for most of the shots, except the lingerie series at the end where I didn’t have enough space to I went for the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 L lens. Shutter speed was constant at 1/125 of a second and ISO was at 200. Aperture varied from f/5.6 to f/14. The video was shot on Canon T4i with Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L lens.
About my lighting: you can see that all shots have mostly different setups, so it would be difficult to describe all of them in detail, but I can list what equipment I’ve used. As the main light for most shots I’ve used a medium beauty dish and a couple of umbrellas for support/backlighting. All of them on Calumet Travelite 750 units. I have also used several Canon Speedlites for some key lighting and a medium circular reflector/diffuser as well as some color gels.
