I was recently told in a facebook group for beginning photographers that I “needed to watch good models work so that I knew all the skill that went into modeling“.
Some of you know my thoughts on that and others don’t but that’s for a different post. The topic for this post however was paying models and I told the individual who asked how much they cost that he could under circumstances get them for free.
Or in effect trade if he could provide value to the models.
I found that response from the third party insultingly hilarious so I thought I’d drop a couple of image of two Playboy Playmates, and a Cybergirl from a lighting workshop I did a couple years ago as well as a couple other shots.
The couple of other shots are of Miss Brazil Supranational and a girl who was pretty much just off the street for her very first photoshoot.
The thing that got me about what that person has said was that he had no idea who he was talking to. But maybe I do actually need to watch “good” models work. Or am I just too busy working with great models!
Picture #1 Playmate Pamela Horton (Miss Oct 2012) –
We had been shooting with Pamela Horton against the far wall and while lights were being set up I had her sit down on this deck on the set that was set up to look like a seaside dock. I happened to look over my shoulder and saw the most perfect scene.
“Pam! Don’t move from there!” I exclaimed with glee. She of course moved. But this is one of the many great shots I got of her there.
This image was shot at iso 100 f 2.8 1/320 using just a reflector for fill and an open head strobe to fill in the wall behind where she is sitting.
Always be conscious of your background and the detail it may have that will need to be lit.
Picture #2 Playmate of the Year 2001 Irina Voronina –
iso 100 F10 1/200 (Pushing the sync on my camera)
I could have upped the aperture to F11 in order to keep the sky more blue, but I didn’t plus it was a little bit of a hazy day that day.
We lit this with an open head strobe above and behind her.
A beauty dish with diffusion material was placed in front of her and a scrim overhead in order to get rid of the harsh sunlight.
Picture #3 Playboy Cybergirl Traci Denee –
iso 100 F8 1/160
This was a bit more complicated of a set up as we used a silver bounce a few steps above her.
A sun swatter scrim above her head and a 7′ Parabolic softbox. (BTS image in comments)
Picture #4 Cloris Junges Miss Brazil Supranational –
Cloris is a student here in the US from Brazil and she had mentioned to me that she’d wanted to do a beach shoot with me. Well I thought it would be fun. So I called a couple friends and we met her down at the beach.
We’d been shooting for most of the day when we noticed that the sun was starting to set. Yup; golden hour was upon us. The thing is we’d been shooting all day using a very simple setup.
I had wanted the shots that day to all have that golden hour look so we were using my 7′ gold reflector.
For the above shot we used nothing more than a 7′ gold reflector and in the case of this image the setting sun.
Picture #5 Rikki Riegler –
Rikki s a young lady I met through a friend of my sisters. ( i don’t have the camera settings currently)
I met Rikki though a friend of my older sister. When I saw this woman I knew she had amazing potential to become quite popular. So I convinced her to shoot with me.
She like most of the girls back then wanted bubble bath photos in my jacuzzi tub. In fact I think she was the first girl I ever shot in that tub!
This was her very first shoot EVER (well there went the skill idea) and I think she did splendidly.
The light coming from the window behind her was my main light. I had a softbox feathered off from camera right to left.
Five entirely different images in different settings showcasing a variety of lighting setups from somewhat complicated to extremely simple.
Not to mention the different women with different levels of modeling experience.
As I said in the beginning. Let me know what you think about these shots and the models in them. Good or Great?
