Pixiq

© 2010 Steve Meltzer

You don’t need a studio to take great model photos. There’s a whole world of locations and settings right outside your door that can be wonderful backdrops for interesting and surprising images. In Part 1 of Photographing Models (search PIXIQ for it) I emphasized how important it is to take a moment to establish rapport with your model. That’s still important to do. When you are shooting at an outside location I often use the time driving or walking to the location as opportunity to chat with the model about my goals for the shoot and what I need from them.

Step 1. Finding a location:

Before I’m any outside shoot I like to take some time to do location scouting. I start by thinking about the shoot. I want the location to fit the subject. I look for interesting locales and then get out of my car—if I’m driving—and walk around the possible site. I snap a few photos of the location to get a sense of how the space will photograph.

Step 2. Lighting:

Once I find a location I have to consider how I will light it scene. For outdoor photography I like to work on lightly overcast days where the thin cloud cover softens the shadows. On sunny days I use a mix of sunlight and the camera flash (or a hand held portable flash). The purpose of the flash is to soften the shadows.

Indoors where supplemental lighting is often necessary I like to try to use as little gear as possible. Often there’s no choice when I am in a situation where I don’t have control over the location. Usually that means that there is no way I can set up big studio flashes and lay electric cords all over the place.

And you know sometimes even having total control things can fall apart. Once I was taking photos for a hotel and I was doing an outdoor night shot of the hotel entrance with a limo dropping an elegant couple at the hotel. I had set up big studio lights all around the hotel entrance and had assistants watching over them. I even had two cops to hold back the curious. Things were calm and going well when it began to rain. In a few seconds everything went to hell in a hand bag. When the downpour hit everyone took shelter and I ran around trying to turn off the lights. As I was doing this I turned to see that in the confusion a spectator had decided to run for cover across the set. As I watched her, this woman run through the electric cables and tripped on an electric cord.  The tug on the electric cable pulled down one of the big lights which fell very, very slowly. I am sure that I opened my mouth and screamed “nooooooooo.” But there was little I could do but watch the light hit the concrete and explode in a very dramatic way. I promised myself at that moment never to let that happen again.

For the photo of the model with this post I was shooting in the women’s fitting rooms of a box store during business hours. The shoot was for a magazine ad in a local publication but although I was working with the store management they were not willing to close the room down for an hour. So I had to work around the space which was filled with shoppers trying on clothing. Luckily my assistant helped keep folks out of the space we were using. But it was still a challenge to keep people from inadvertently turning up reflected in one of the room’s mirrors.

My lighting choice for this shoot was pretty limited—no wires--and for this photograph I decided to use a portable accessory flash mounted on a light stand and triggered by a wireless remote control.

I aimed the flash at the ceiling to replicate the room’s overhead lighting. I also counted on the rooms light colored walls to bounce the light and soften the shadows.

Step 3. Naturalness

The purpose of talking to the model, choosing a location and setting up lighting is for me to produce a photograph that looks natural and un-posed. I want the viewer to feel that they had just come across this young woman trying on some clothing.

The photo with this post is the result of this work but it is also one of several hundred images I shot at this location. That’s the other key to great model photography, take lots and lots of pictures.