Stephanie’s Senior Portraits

I had shot a Trash The Dress (TTD) session with Stephanie this past May. Earlier this month, Chris Tierney and I shot her actual senior portraits. We started in an abandoned building downtown on August 2nd. It was loaded with graffiti and being inside I took advantage of my strobes since there wasn’t enough ambient light inside. I also exclusively used my 50mm lens on this day because my wide angle was at Canon for service and my telephoto was too long for the shots I needed.

Don’t forget about your background. In this shot I wanted to make sure the graffiti was nicely lit. I used a 28×42 softbox behind the pillar to light the background with soft light to make the colors pop.

While we were there, a young kid and his girlfriend were tagging. Chris talked him in to writing Class of 2010 on the wall. He used only red spray paint. Earlier I had seen a paint brush on the top floor of the building so I asked Stephanie if she did any art or painting. She did, so I got the brush and had Stephanie act like she was painting the text on the wall. I added additional shading in post processing to liven up the effect.

Think about more than just your subject’s face. In this shot I have my 28×42 softbox behind her to softly light her back and hair. A window is to my left and I had Stephanie’s Mom hold a boom with a light and speed light pro kit to pop her face.

When you’re shooting against backlight, get a meter reading of that light and set your camera based on how you want it to expose. Then use your lighting to bring your subject up to the appropriate exposure.

After these shots we went up another floor. I wanted some shots with balanced light on the downtown skyline but my strobes weren’t enough to get the job done and it was extremely windy. All of the windows in the building are broken out and this floor was completely open. I ended up not liking any of the images because of the way the wind was blowing around her hair and because it was making it difficult to keep the umbrellas on her.

After the building we went to a football field and Chris shot Stephanie and I setup the lighting for him. By this point it was getting late and we didn’t get as many clothing changes as we wanted so we decided we’d shoot Stephanie a second time out near her house a few weeks later. Chris is old friends with Stephanie’s family so they got special treatment! I love shooting and Stephanie is a great model so I don’t mind shooting her more at all!

On August 19th we met again at Stephanie’s home out in Yutan. They have a great area right by their house with a railroad so we started there and got a lot of fantastic natural light shots.

Use a large aperture to blur your background and make your subject stand out but be careful to maintain enough depth of field (DOF) to keep the important features of your subject in focus.

Next, we went to their friend’s farm and shot on a beautiful old bridge which goes over a ravine with another railroad track below it. After Chris shot a little while we decided we needed a strobe to really show off the stormy clouds that were moving in. While Chris ran back to my bag to get what I needed I shot this natural light portrait.

Use foreground objects and leading lines. With a large aperture you can creatively blur both your foreground and background for a unique look. For this shot I had my 70-200 lens at F3.5 and laid it right on the railing.

He brought back my 580exII, a 45″ shoot through umbrella, and a long TTL cord. Since we were running short on time and the storm was coming fast I wanted to bang this set out. I asked him to point the umbrella toward the flowers behind Stephanie to light them up which feathered the light on to her for a very flattering and even look.

Don’t be a zealot when it comes to any particular way of doing things. Don’t think that just because you are using off-camera flash you have to be a purist and do it manually. I needed this shot done fast. I didn’t want to spend time metering and adjusting the flash, even though I can do it quickly, and I wanted to be able to adjust the flash exposure at will directly from the camera. A long TTL cord was my solution. I’ve used Canon’s Wireless TTL before, but feel the cord provides a more consistent control of output in comparison.

Our next stop was the highway. I wanted to take a picture with Stephanie sitting in the middle of the road. During our short drive I noticed how magnificent the clouds were looking and we found a fence that was in the direction of the best clouds. I used the same setup for this shot as the last one.

Then, we turned around and waited for traffic to clear and I asked Stephanie to sit on the road. She laid down instead, but it worked! I told Chris where I needed him with the light. I had him hold it over the camera axis in a bounce configuration to spread the light more evenly from head to toe.

Know your tools and use them appropriately. A shoot through umbrella, which a lot of people use by default, would have given somewhat of a spot light effect on Stephanie’s face while leaving her feet relatively dark. I wanted even light across her so I used a reflective umbrella which provides a more even spread of light.

Stephanie’s Senior Portraits

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