Portrait practice in the desert
With a rare week in town I decided it was time to do some practicing on my portrait shooting. I got a hold of Lina, a model I had shot with before. Rounded up Naomi my assistant and off into the Arizona desert we went.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 1250iso, f6.3, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
After about a 30 minute drive we found a spot and parked right by the no parking at anytime sign and began to set up shop.
Since shooting portrait photos isn’t something I have much experience with I am always forgetting important things. This shoot would once again prove that with me forgetting a power strip to plug into my Alien Bee Vagabond power pack. The only thing I don’t like about the Vagabond battery is it only has one power outlet on it. But I guess if I paid attention when packing it wouldn’t have been much of a problem.
Since I would only be able to use one strobe now I had to go for a backup plan of a Nikon SB800 flash to use for a second light source. Of course as my luck would have it the batteries in the flash were pretty drained and would fire only once every 25 seconds or so. Awesome.
The strobe and the flash were both triggered via Pocket Wizards.
With the light quickly going away Naomi and I set up and began taking test shots of Lina.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 400iso, f1.8, 1/250th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Obviously the lighting was waaaay too bright on her so we made a quick flash power adjustment.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 100iso, f4.5, 1/250th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Now the lighting was much better compared to the initial pics but now the background was completely black. A lot of times a perfect black background is good for photos but why would we have driven out to the damn desert to not utilize the natural backgrounds. The above photo could have been shot in my bathroom, and trust me thats much closer than the desert!
Below is a wider shot that shows the lighting set up.
Lina headed back to the car to change into the new bikini she wanted for the photos so we made some more adjustments as well as moving the setup around to get a better background.
Test shot of new exposure setup.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 320iso, f4, 1/250th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Then Lina came back and we started fooling around with some shots.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 800iso, f7.1, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Below is a wider view which shows you the lighting set up.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 800iso, f7.1, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 320iso, f4, 1/100th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
A lot of times with portraits I slow the shutter speed down and when I shoot a picture I’ll slightly move the camera to add some background blur. The strobe does a good job of freezing your subject while blurring everything else not lit.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 800iso, f7.1, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
While it certainly shows some blur I took it a bit further and twisted the camera faster during the exposure.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 800iso, f7.1, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
First one looked better. Moving along.
For the next pose I switched angles and knelt on the edge of a pretty big cliff to get a different angle/background.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 500iso, f5, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Below is a setup shot that showed the lighting setup along with my dangerous shooting position.
I put the camera all the way on the ground for some pictures because I enjoyed the ground texture it gave to some of the photos. Plus having the camera low cleaned up some of the backgrounds.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 400iso, f5, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Lina came up with an idea for a pose she wanted to do. Back in high school Lina was a gymnast so she busted out a cool little handstand for a shot.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 400iso, f4, 1/30th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
We then switched the setup 180degrees to take advantage of the awesome sky color from the sunset.
By this point the batteries in my Nikon SB800 flash were shot so I had to finish the shoot with just the Alien Bee 1600watt strobe with softbox.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 500iso, f4, 1/60th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Moved a bit to line her up with a cactus in the background.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 500iso, f5.6, 1/60th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Next time I am totally gonna throw a gelled flash aimed at the cactus to light it up a cool color.
I headed back to the edge of the cliff and laid down and shot through a prickly bush. I had to adjust the f stop quite a bit to gain some depth of field to add the framing of the bush.
Nikon D3, 85mm, 3200iso, f13, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Some people like the effect some hate it but I am always one to try different type shots so I don’t sit at home the next few days wondering “what if.”
Back to a few more portraits that didn’t require me to tip toe on the edge of a cliff.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 400iso, f4, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 400iso, f4, 1/50th with Alien Bee 1600watt strobe
After that shot right as we were about to pack up I tried one more shot that had popped into my head. I laid down on the ground and turned the pocket wizard off and shot a silhouette shot with the mountains.
Nikon D3, 14-24mm, 1600iso, f2.8, 1/50th
Next time I wanna do this same shot but with a tight grid on the strobe just lighting her face.
All in all it was a good and fun shoot. A lot of the poses and backgrounds have minor fixes that would have been made had the shoot been for anything in particular but for now I am more concerned with learning the basics of portrait lighting so I can become a more well rounded photographer.
All feedback is appreciated.
-Mark J. Rebilas is a freelance sports photographer based in Arizona. His work is seen regularly in Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, USA Today and many others around the country. Visit www.markjrebilas.com to learn more about his work.
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