Attree Images

Yesterday afternoon was spent doing another studio lighting test and portfolio shoot for a lovely young New Zealand model named Sammie. I had to try hard not to hold the fact that she was a Kiwi against her considering it was the day after the All Blacks smashed the Wallabies but I managed to look past it :) Sammie - http://www.modelmayhem.com/1334132 has been a dancer for years and has only recently begun modeling but she did a terrific job and I look forward to shooting with her again soon. 

Our first set up was with grey background paper, a Bowens Quad X head in the front, camera left and a second Quad X head positioned behind Sammie and to the right attached with a grid reflector to give that nice hair light and separation from the background.  

For the next setup we changed to the white background and I used the two heads with strip soft boxes aimed at the background and added another head with the beauty dish attached, positioned just to the right and above my camera position. I'm a big fan of how the beauty dish (with honeycomb grid attached) gives a nice pool of soft but directional light around the face and upper torso and then falls off nicely down the rest of the body. 

For the last setup we changed to a black background and went for a much more moody look. This is only a two light arrangement using the two Quad X heads with strip soft boxes positioned either side of Sammie but behind her, facing each other. The trick to this is that the soft boxes aren't aimed directly at the subject so you get a nice glow of light from the spill coming off the sides of the soft boxes. 

This is one of my favourite lighting setups for my studio art-nude images as it gives great highlights and shadows and shows off the contours of the body nicely.