Courtenay, B.C. Railway personal shoot

 Courtenay Costume Rental's

Personal project

Photography shoot

For a few years now I have wanted to do a shoot with a heritage feel to it. I have been snooping through second hand shops to find vintage props, without much success.

Last summer I decided to drop into Courtenay Costumes on Puntledge road to see what they had for possible props.

And Wow what a selection, we snooped through the dresses, hats, belts scarfs, jewelry suit cases, you name it they have it.

What a selection. We decided on vintage white dress and a vintage pattern dress for each one of the models. 

It was a beautiful sunny day, we were camping at Comox lake that week, the girls grabbed their little bit of make up hair pins, clips and accessories that they thought they might need and off we went to the railway station. 

Models: Gabby Lindsay

Hannah Kent

Miranda Kent




1/640's of a second. I wanted the buildings to be in focus, crisp clean and sharp with detail. The f-stop I was using f/16. ISO at the lowest possible setting which with a D3 is Low 1.0




It was about 3:00 when we started. Lots of sunlight, you can see by the hard shadows in the first photo the sun was mid sky as the shadows are relatively long and hard. 




I decided to take the girls to the shader side of the station so I could use different lighting techniques. 
in this next photo of the girls on the stairs,

I first set my camera setting to expose for the sky. I wanted the blue contrast against the red of the building. Then  it was time to light the girls. 
 I turned on my SB 800's two of them set at 1/4 power.  
One of the flashes was pointing at the model on the top rail which was shot through a shoot through umbrella, the other flash was pointing at the lower model direct (no diffusion) 
as I only had one umbrella with me. (traveling)
You can see the shadows on the skirt of the lower model, without diffusion you get hard shadows.
 
                 There was no sun at all on this side of the building.                  All lit by two off camera flashes. I triggered them using an Su-800. 

You can see the hard shadows behind Hannah, and the rim lighting on her hands.

This photo I placed one sb-800 to the models left side of her, it was placed up on the rail, I wanted a highlight on the far side of her face to give more dimension to the photo. Using the rail in the composition to lead the eye to the model. 

These two photos were backlit by the sun, the front of her I lit with one sb-800 and a silver reflector. You can see the highlight in the models eye on the 2nd photo, with out the highlight you wouldn't have much life in the models face.




Back to the sunny side of the station!

For this photo, we used the vintage umbrella to defuse the light, no hard shadows. Leading lines  from the train tracks to add dimension to the photo. 

This photo was shot without any fill light no flash, no reflectors!

                                                                                                          

This photo I used a silver reflector, you can see the difference in the lighting in her face. 

This photo of Gabby I metered the camera with the in camera's metering system, using the spot meter mode in her face,  and took the shot.  Since the camera was metering from her face the background is over lit. Still works, just sets a different feeling in the image then the one below.  

This shot was taken with in a minute of the last photo. I wanted to post this so you could see how the different metering systems can help you get the different moods in your photos.
First what i di was meter for the ambient light. I used the same f stop as the last shot f 16 and then used a little fill light, on the model. For that shot, I flashed my sb-800 into the gold side of the reflector so I would reflect a larger source of light. The sky is bluer and the over all feel is different. 

Playing with shadows, spot meter from the skin.

Hannah and her suit case!

The last 3 images I shot with the sun as the back and side light. Using one flash and a reflector to fill the  light on the darker side. 

In the last image you can see two light sources in Hannah's eye's, a small shadow just under chin. 

Quite often if you are wondering how a photo was lit, you can break it down by looking at the direction of shadows, highlights in the eyes, rim lighting ect... there are many clues, in most photos, just take the time to look at them. 

For this shot the same as above, but I wanted to have the sun setting in the background. I cheated and created it with a lens flare in Photoshop in layers. The girls wanted to go back to the lake for an afternoon swim...
This shoot took us about 3 hours, I have lots more good photos from the shoot, but I posted the best ones, so I could explain the set up and ideas. 

Equipment used

Nikon 24-70 mm lens, very nice piece of glass 2.8 aperture. Love this lens

Nikon SB-800 Wish Nikon was still making them., they now have the 900 very bulky and the new sb700. Looks very similar the 800. Has good reviews, except the battery door not as strong as people would like.
 I haven't purchased one yet, still looking to buy more sb 800's on ebay. 

Lastolite 5 in one reflector

Lastolite shoot through umbrella

Nikon D3. Love it Still no need to upgrade. This is one incredible camera, 

Su 800. Great tool for adjusting your flashes from the camera, and triggering, as long as they are in close range.
If you have any questions, just send me an email through my website or leave a comment on the blog.
Follow if you would like,  soon I will be posting a blog for Bahrain Top model season 3, episode 3....
We have had our challenges this month!