Assisting Georgia's shoot

Today I assisted Georgia Bloy with her shoot. She was taking actors headshots, and I gave her a hand with lighting and for a lighting test while she waited for the model.

Oh the fun we had, Capture One was being a little bit of a nuisance, refusing to rotate the images, which we later found out (with help from 3 staff members who were all just as confused as we were) that it was a setting on the camera. Yay for learning new things right?

We also worked out a great feature of Capture One which is Live View mode. Now I have a canon software which is pretty similar to capture one in that it lets you control the camera through a laptop or computer and allows you to see more clearly what you're shooting as you shoot it, and also tweak the images a little bit. It is no way even close to the level that Capture One is at, however I know how helpful live view mode can be for me when doing self portraits, trying new techniques without a model, so when I spotted the little video camera button on Capture One I had a feeling it would do the same thing.

This was incredibly helpful for Georgia because she worked out how to zoom in on the live view screen and make sure she had the eyes of the model completely in focus as she was using a very shallow depth of field with a 50mm lens, and it was so helpful to know you were definitely in focus every single time. So we did good teaching ourselves new tricks and all in all it was a very successful shoot. I have since contacted a couple of young actors about their headshots as a way for use to practice together and use in our portfolio!

Assisting Emma's shoot.

Today I assisted the lovely Emma Howe during her shoot for her contextual studies supporting image before I went off to shoot mine!

Her image will be in the style of Solve Sundsbo, with a double exposure feel to it.

It was a very smooth shoot! I met the model (whom I actually know), before heading up to college, and then while she was in getting her makeup done by the fantastic Laura Lou (who's information I will link at the bottom of this post for you.) I gave Emma a hand with her lighting.

Rebecca (the model) was really lovely to work with, she isn't shy and was happy to do anything Emma suggested while I ended up in the back directing the fan to her hair.

While Emma was taking head shots for Laura I set up to record a snippet of video to try and make a cinemagraph from, I thought it was worth it while the lights were set up to just hit record and play around once I got home.

This is what I got:

Now it is nowhere near what I was expecting and I'll explain why:

First of all, I had Rebecca do some spins and some poses, but what I need to pay attention to when making these is that the motion can be repeated seamlessly, so although she was spinning in a full circle, her feet didn't stay in the same place, and that was a problem, because it meant there was a little jump where she started the process again, and takes away from the fact it looks like almost a moment in time captured.

Secondly, the lighting was very orange, so I had to switch it black & white, that was probably the settings on my camera, and the fact it was picking up the overhead lighting aswell as the modelling lamps, so I need some proper continuous lighting if I'm to studio shoot again.
(I would have fixed this in post, but I had issues with the editing software I have on my laptop, so it all had to be done in photoshop!)

Thirdly, this is still not perfect motion, the best bit i could choose was her hair movement, and her hand still moves and slightly jumps.

However, this was definitely a learning curve and I aside from the frustration, I really did enjoy the process and I'm looking forward to practicing and improving!

Beth :)

Emma Howe:
https://www.facebook.com/EmmaHowePhotography?pnref=lhc


Laura Lou:
https://www.facebook.com/lauraloumakeupartist?fref=ts