Model shoot - Jane Chiu

Jane Chiu is a former co-worker / model / friend who needs a few shots for her upcoming pageant. The location of this shoot is at Caltech. She's experienced so it's easy to shoot her, with minimal instructions and setup time.

At the time I had the luck of having FIVE assistants-- my beautiful wife Pam, her brother Ben, brother's wife Karla, her mom Yuen, and Jane's bf Rob. I designated Pam as the main light, Ben as the fill light, and Karla as the hair light-- the rest carried equipments. We had about an hour and a half to shoot (6:10 till sunset), so it was a very fast paced session. I like fast paced shooting sessions.

I prefer to shoot a client's head first-- the make up is still fresh, there isn't a lot of sweat, and the eyes and expressions are still sharp (model fatique kicks in after an hour or so). Therefore, I almost always start with head shots first. Below is a 3rd try. I kept this one because the face is clear, the lighting is soft (thanks Pam!) and the catch light in her eyes shows up clearly. Also I liked the blurred domes/arch that I placed in the back. Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G VR.

After a few usable head shots, I move to half body shots. The sun-ray hitting to the side of her hair and a little bit of the face-- flash magic. Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G.

After about 1/2 hour we moved to the hallway in Caltech. There were a bunch of people dressed up for their wedding shoot, and I decided to make them as the backdrop. No flash. No Photoshop magic, shot as is using a specialized "wedding lens" called Lensbaby Composer. Lensbaby Composer set on Manual exposure mode on f/4 aperture ring.

Every shooting session needs a darker, more serious shot. Here are two of my favorites using one of the dark buildings on Caltech. One is a soft dark shot, and the other one is a harsh cold-looking shot.

For some reason, many Asians like white-washed (hi-key like) shots. So here is one for the sake of variety:

Personally, I like vintage stuff. Below is an attempt at creating a 1960s film look. This could have been someone's mom in the 60s, or something:


In the end we had about 110 frames. 20 were duds (test exposures). I ended up picking only 30. All of these pictures were shot under an hour and a half, with five assistants. In the absence of assistants, I'd have to use umbrellas (instead of hand-hold diffusers), and it would have taken at least 4 hours. Thanks to Pam, Ben, Karla, Yuen, and Rob. That was pretty fun!

P.S. Feel free to send me more clients!

--------------

Technical data:

Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G VR

Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G

Lensbaby Composer f/4