I have been thinking of doing this for a long time but something else always came up. A shoot that has the elements of a studio session but not shot inside of a studio. I needed a model who would work for free.. well I mean just his portfolio images that I provide. After looking up on local modelling sites and Facebook pages, unsuccessfully, I found my model. My lighting assistant Ravi. He doubles up as a dance instructor and has all the traits of a model and some cool moves too. I discussed my plan with him a couple of weeks back and it finally all came together this Sunday. We met up at Lalbagh, which is my favorite outdoor location for a shoot like this. My plan was to get a set of images which are lit up to mimic the lighting from the golden years of Hollywood. Which meant that the light is hard, quite contrasty and the images are all black and white. I had asked Ravi to bring along some head gear to induce the mood of the sixties. I always knew Ravi has the looks from the past 🙂 . Hollywood typically used fresnel lights which are continuous lights – cinema ofcourse cant do with flashes and strobes. And they had atleast two of them, as required typically for portraiture. A key light and an accent light. It would have been advisable to use a beauty dish for the kind of effect but I wanted to travel light and mobility was key for me. So the choice of location was of utmost importance. So I made good with a speedlight – Canon 580EXII triggered remotely via radio triggers. I knew the kind of light I was looking for so it didnt take us long before we settled for a location where we could use the sun both as key in one images and accent in others. We shot the entire shoot in this location and didnt feel the need to move because we were getting just the light we needed. We shot for the next 2+ hours and got some very nice pictures.
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