Shoot with Sydney

I recently did a shoot with Sydney and her family. She's the daughter of one of my sister's friends. Had a great time and they were all really fun to work with. It was also great that they let me completely take over the living room in their house and turn it into a makeshift studio.

Sydney really was the star. She's still young and has never had lights and a camera totally focused on her before but she totally rocked it and was a natural in front of the camera. There's not much more to say, as I think the photos show it better than I can write it.

 

I recently spent a day with Scott Kelby, and about 400 others, at his Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It Live tour in Toronto and took a lot of what I learned and put it into practice on this shoot. I started out with a white background with a one light set-up, an SB900 and a Westcott 43" umbrella, which was positioned directly above Sydney. I also added a silver reflector below to get that typical fashion/beauty look.

I then switched to a black background for a different look and changed up my lighting set-up. I used two SB900s here; one was through a 24" Lastolite Ezbox positioned high to camera left, and the other was an accent light positioned behind Sydney to camera right. I used the same Westcott 43" umbrella as a shoot through, but only pulled half of the black cover off to try and control the spill of light.

 

We then got to a point where I was thinking what to do next, so I asked her dad if they had a fan. Sure enough they did! Plugged it in set dad to work manning the fan, and got hair flying all over the place.

As I said, it was a lot of fun and I think the photos show that. I think I'll need to speak to Sydney's "management team" to setup another shoot in the near future.

Cheers!

DC