An Accidental Cookie

I was messing around with this model last night.

No, not that way--I ain't that lucky--we were shooting and, since I had a bit more time than usual, I started messing around with the lights.

Most of my messing around, to my eye, didn't look so cool. I know, as photographers, we're often encouraged to think and shoot outside the box but, sometimes, when we do, outside the box ain't such a pretty place.

BTW, I did get all the pics my client needed. The messing around part was in addition to the expected images.

My model, Miko, was cool with it. The alternative was sitting around, bored to tears, listening to me trying to make witty conversation with someone younger than half my age, namely her, and I think she sensed that-- Smart chick. (We were waiting for my client who was running late.)

Anyway, I was playing around with my ring flash, shooting a lot of crap, trying to decide what I did and didn't like about it. (I'm quite new to ring flash lighting.) After a while, I decided to get it off my camera, putting it on a stand above and slightly behind me. As it was, I was working with limited gear. My client, who usually has some pretty nice Profoto packs-and-heads in his studio, didn't. What I mean is the Profoto gear was MIA, AWOL, absent, whatever. Turned out it was on loan.

Fortunately, I had my PCB/Zeus pack-and-heads with me, plus the ring flash that goes with that system. Unfortunately, I had nothing to modify with. You'd think there'd be one lousy umbrella or something in that studio, but no, there wasn't. All I could find was some diffusion material. I should mention I shoot for this client regularly, like weekly, so I assumed, before heading over there, everything would be as it normally is, in the studio I mean. It wasn't. My bad for assuming.

Okay, at least there were stands. So, I grabbed a C-Stand and a grip arm, put a head on it, MacGyvered the diffusion material in front of it to make the light less harsh, and boomed it behind Miko. This would be my backlight, making some highlights from one side and behind. Since I didn't have a main light modifier, I decided to go with the ring flash. After all, many shooters go with a ring flash and, often enough, nothing else. It all worked reasonably well. Good enough to get what I needed to get, especially for web-site use.

Back to putting the ring flash on a light stand...

The ring flash on the stand worked well enough, especially for messing around. The light was a bit harsher than I usually prefer, mostly because I was working in fairly close quarters on a small set and without a modifier.

At one point, I raised my ass of the apple-box I was seated on, snapped a few, chimped, then realized I had partially blocked the ring flash with my fat head and husky body. (Husky sounds better than many alternative words meaning the same or similar, no?) I started to sit back down so as not to block the light when I thought, "Ya know. That doesn't look *that* bad." Leastwise, on the LCD. So, I got back up and, like a human cookie, or cucoloris, snapped a few more, moving my head and body around in front of the ring flash to alter the shadow effect.

I still don't know if I like the results or not. I'm leaning towards not. The colors got a little weird for some reason I haven't yet figured out; I probably screwed them up worse adjusting in post. Her face is approaching geisha-white, seriously mis-matched to the rest of her skin tones-- a result of the hard-light of the ring flash hitting her face and my soft body blocking other parts of the light, i.e., flagging, softening, and feathering.

I suppose the whole experiment was a little like thinking and shooting outside the box, leastwise, it was thinking and shooting off the box-- my ass off the apple-box, that is. But like I said, outside the box ain't always a pretty place. My ass off the apple box ain't so pretty either. I'm just saying.

It certainly would make more sense to use an actual cucolorus instead of my body for a cookie but, like I said, Miko and I were just messing around. (Yeah. I wish.)

The pretty girl at the top, as already mentioned, is Miko. I discovered that Miko's Mom is Korean and her Dad is Irish and she was born in Germany but grew up in Seattle. Go figure. Gotta love that Eurasian thing, right?. BTW, even though the skin on her torso looks smoothed, I didn't do a thing to it in post. All I did was crop, adjust various levels, burn a few areas, and that's about it. I'm thinking the pic might look okay in B&W, especially with my shadows dancing around on her lower body, but I have too much to do right now--Xmas and all--to be messing around with it in PS.