Shoot Notes McKenzie Lynn Shoot!

I had the opportunity to work with McKenzie Lynn in my studio recently. For those who know anything about me; you know just how much I dislike; no; hate shooting in studio. Especially my own.

For me; the toughest thing about shooting in studio is when I don’t have a lot of props or a fully built set.

McKenzie Lynn came in to shoot. She is a 5’10” freckle faced redhead originally from Georgia who oddly enough sometimes looks like she could be related to supermodel Gigi Hadid.

We were fortunate to have Gabriella Simmons doing her make up. Gabriella loved McKenzie’s face and freckles so wanted to go understated with the make up so as not to lose the freckles.

McKenzie had this yellow green wool coat and a purse with some matching color which interestingly matched her eyes a little bit. So we did some images of her just standing with the purse and jacket on and came away despite my thinking to the contrary with the following image.

It am left thinking that this is a great capture of McKenzie. And while the whole time shooting her I thought that I wasn’t getting anything that was going to be usable and that she was going to hate me and never want to shoot with me again we got the above shot.

Now am I off base saying that to me it looks like could be an ad one might see in a magazine? Yeah; ok my Unicorn is blue. Moving on.

Since I often think that my studio shoots aren’t going to be good I tend to work even harder to get some good shots.

I have this old chair in the studio and I thought it would be great to showcase it; and this is where the technical problems started. No I did not correct them because it wasn’t until after I looked at the image the next day that I was enlightened as to changes that could be done.

The above image is pretty good an doesn’t really display any of the issues you will see in the next image.

This image is the one that could have used several different changes. In reality the focus of the changes have everything to do with her legs. So let’s begin with the most direct and easy change that could have been made.

McKenzie as one would expect from a 5′ 10″ tall model; has wonderful long legs as a fashion model should have. Her legs are also very pale. Not a bad thing. But the easiest change would have been to elevate the chair onto a platform of some kind.

This would have allowed her to place her feet flat on the floor or at least her toes so that her knee wasn’t up in her armpit as you can see above.

Getting more complicated and having more to do with the lighting than positioning.

As I said a time or two. She has great long pale legs. As such though; her legs caught a bit too much light. I should have screened the light off them a bit to bring their exposure closer to that of her face.

I also should have raised my angle ever slightly while also backing up a bit and zooming back into about the same position. This would make her legs slightly smaller, also more out of focus, in frame and bringing you more into level ‘eye’ contact with her.

Finally, I should have blocked the highlight behind her (though it’s coming from your key) and put it from the opposite side down around her left shoulder and arm, trailing off into shadow upper right, bringing the viewer more to her face.

These are just some of the changes that had I to do it again knowing what I know now I would make.

I lit her with a single 72″ Octabox and strobe camera left. To the right of and behind her I had a silver reflector on a stand.

As typical; I often find something that I could have or should have done differently after the shoot is over. But I do make not of it and make sure to jot it down in my photography notebook so that I can refer to it for future shoots.

I hope that you find this helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment below for me. I will be sure to do my best to respond to them.

Also; be sure to check out my YouTube Photography channel as well.