FILLESFOLLES.BE PART II

Away from the seamless backdrop

After a couple of hours into the fillesfolles.be shoot I felt like I was losing a bit of concentration and focus, making small mistakes on the lighting, posing etc..

The ladies also already had a long day so for them a change in scenery would work well too. We had the complete soccer stadium at our disposal and went out and scouted the area a bit, looking for some interesting scenes.

The VIP lounge was a clear bright white area that overlooked the field. Shooting without some fill lights would give me nothing but overexposed sky from the big window so I brought in a light stand and a shoot-trough umbrella with a 1/4 CTO gel. The girls had a lot of fun and really went into their new role.

This was actually a shot that I took during one of the earlier breaks.
I saw a great picture opportunity so I ran back to get my camera and a voice activated light stand holding a flash & umbrella.

Not everything was shot with flash, in this shot, the indoor VIP seats gave me a great line to work with. And my model felt more at home here than she did in the studio. The longer focal range & larger apreture made sure the background isn’t distracting.

Getting outside to the stands I posed the group in a V formation standing in the big entrance to the field.
I couldn’t use my umbrellas because of the high wind conditions and to make things worse the batteries on my flash were dying on me.

I didn’t get the most out of this shot, my group direction skills still need a lot of tuning (get everyone with the same facial expression, take more shots to avoid blinkers etc) and on the technical side there is lots of room for improvement (sky exposure, light setup). Sadly mistakes like these happen but they make you a better photographer on your next job.

Still, looking back on that day, I have more satisfaction from these couple of shots because they made me think & improvise on location. And this is how you learn to progress.