One of my favorite styles of photography to shoot is close-up beauty and fashon work with clean, simplistic lighting. This photo shoot was no exception.
While chatting with Gwen and Lorri, Jazmin brought up a concept she had been interested in for some time, a beauty inspired setup using shoes as a high-fashion prop. Everyone liked the idea and Gwen was looking to add more fashion photos to her portfolio, so we got to it and started to flush out the concept.
Lorri decided to go with a contrasting look for each of the models. Gwen’s makeup took on a moody and fashion feel, with dark eyes and pale skin. Jazmin’s makeup more clean and natural. For each setup, the model’s makeup was updated slightly to match the shoes they were working with. I went to work on changing the lighting, while Jazmin sorted through a pile of shoes she brought from her collection.
For this series, I used a variation of the lighting I often like to use in my beauty work. The setup involves a single strobe, used as the main light and a number of reflectors. The main light strobe was fired into a large satin umbrella that was placed high and directly in front of the models. For the background I was looking to capture a soft light gray, so I decided upon using the white seamless and not directly lighting it. The fall off from the main light was enough to create the color I was looking for. The large umbrella itself creates a soft wrap around light, though I wanted very little shadows and a few of the setups were to include both models. To accommodate this, I added two large white reflectors on both sides of the set, placed four feet or so away from the models to maintain a little bit of the shaping qualities from the light falling off. Lastly, a white reflector was placed at floor level, angled towards the models to provide a little fill under their chins.
If you’d like to see more from this shoot, watch my Flickr photostream as I post more photos over the next couple weeks.
When shooting on location you may find yourself confronted by beautiful, soft, ambient light. Don’t freak out, it’s alright. Actually it’s great, but that doesn’t mean your setup needs to stop there.
I started using this setup late last year, mostly in various shoots in Mexico. You can see more examples of this setup on my Flickr photostream.
