Shooting a model portfolio

By PA Team

05 September 2011 10:44

Practical Photography’s technique writer Ed Godden blogs about his passion for shooting models and experimenting with creative lighting.

For the past three years I’ve been photographing models on a regular basis, mainly making contact with them through networking sites like Model Mayhem. This is a great way to not only build up your portfolio but to also experiment with new shooting techniques. I’ve been shooting more and more fine art nudes and experimenting with natural light, so decided to contact a model from Cheltenham that I’d recently become aware of.

Sarah (Artemis Modelling) is an experienced fine art nude model and used to posing for photographers wanting to add to their nude portfolios. But she had seen my portfolio and wanted to try and add to hers with some glamour and fashion images.  After a few messages we soon arranged a shoot at her flat.

I arrived at Sarah’s at around 10am. After a cup of coffee and a quick chat getting to know each other, we discussed what each of us wanted to get from the shoot and made our way into her second bedroom/studio. With a great 7ft wide backdrop and set of pro studio lights I was spoilt for choice. But, as I mentioned earlier, I was looking for natural light shots. And to satisfy Sarah’s portfolios needs I took my ringflash to make sure I got the shots she wanted for her portfolio.

As Sarah wanted a good selection of images I decided to use a variation of lighting techniques, including ringflash, off-camera flash and available light.

We started the shoot using my Sunpak ringflash, providing a lovely even-lit image. Ringflash gives the instant wow-factor and makes the shot look like it’s straight off the pages of a lad’s mag.

To get an even more glamour feel I shot with my Nikon SB900 flashgun to provide a strong light. Shooting with it attached to a cable, I was able to handhold the flash off to the side of me to provide a near-spotlight effect. This harsh way of lighting helps to create strong shadows and really picked up the vibrant colours in Sarah’s clothes.

With the large amount of light bursting into the room it made sense to make the most of this by shooting without flash. I love creating images with natural light and the large white walls in Sarah’s flat were perfect for not only acting as a simple and clean backdrop, but also for reflecting the light on her. Below is a simple portrait I took using my 50mm Nikon prime lens. With the light coming in from the window to the right of Sarah, you can see how a nice shadow is cast on the other side of her face. I always prefer using my 35mm and 50mm prime lenses when shooting in low light conditions, as they both have wide apertures, allowing me to get fast enough shutter speeds and so shoot handheld.

Now swapping over to my 35mm I was able to get some full-length images of Sarah. Still using the large window as the main light source I experimented with poses and a few different changes of clothes.

To finish off our shoot we spent 45 minutes shooting some fine art nude portraits. This is what Sarah does for a living so very little direction was needed from me. She simply went from pose to pose making interesting shapes that looked great with the light coming in from the window. All I needed to keep an eye on was my exposure.

So, five hours and a lot of coffee later we were done. After reviewing the images on the camera’s LCD, we were both happy with our images and decided to call it a day.

Sarah can be contacted via http://purpleport.com/portfolio/Artemis/