Shaye the Therapist

This is just another example of not knowing what to expect when coming to a photo shoot. I think for the first time I wasn't all worked up and nervous beforehand. You know, worried that things won't go well, or basically that I'll come away from it without a single shot.

I had only talked to Shaye briefly on the phone to set up the appointment but other than that I had no idea what to expect, I mean, for all I know I could've been walking into the most boring corporate office with no possibility for a decent shot. Ok, through that all aside, the office was pretty nondescript in the waiting room, but Shaye's office itself had this wonderful green on the walls. Anyway, that's not really important, I was just really happy that there was something striking about the place. I knew it was something we could work with. Shaye was a riot, laugh a minute. I knew that it would be real easy to jive with her and get something good, however...

I've only been using my monolights for a little over a month now. I've tried to practice and study and all that but when you get it into the shoot it just adds so much complexity. And the more you add to it, the complexity doesn't just double, it squares itself. Like it your camera is x (x-complexness), then camera plus one monolight is actually x². Then add another monolight to the equation and it becomes x³. Dig? Anyway, I was having problems with exposure, I just couldn't seem to dial it in and then the white balance seemed way off, not that I was super worried about that because shooting in RAW allows for changing that, but everything on the back of the camera seemed so cold. We had a great time, laughed a lot, but I really felt like I left without getting any good shots.

But....

Once I got home and loaded the images into the Mac, I was very happy. I brought the white balance back to where it should be and fiddled with the color balance a little to set off the green of the wall against the red of her hair and wow... I really like these.

I have also been really sold on the ND4 filter technique. I think it really adds something to the image. Makes the background really lay down almost like a
backdrop.

Pretty happy with it.

I have two shoots tomorrow and another on Thursday. I'm looking forward to them, as always.