A good friend of mine, Rachel Mason of Dare to be Different, asked if I would photograph Sarah, a friend of Rachel’s who also worked in her salon.
Sarah has a great interest in all things dark. Vampires, horror and anything macabre. I felt the shoot should reflect this side of her chracter.
I chose Marsden Park in Nelson, as it has some very interesting Victorian architecture available. Whilst the architecture certainly fits with Sarah’s character, the overall ambience of the place is quite dark too.
I used a two head Lencarta Safari Classic setup. I had a 120cm folding Octa camera right at about head height and approximately five feet from Sarah. The second head was fired through a folding 70x100cm softbox camera left, at around shoulder height and orientated vertically. It was also set to feather across Sarah, so it didn’t light the back of the column. It was placed at around seven feet from Sarah, ensuring the Octa acted as key light. The output from the Safari was set to 1/4 and I also used a slower shutter speed to catch more detail in the wall beyond Sarah where some light would fall from the 70x100cm softbox..
D3 1/60th sec ISO200 24-70mm f7.1
For this, I neede the Octa outside with me (camera right), and the 70×100 inside, so as Sarah didn’t fade into the background. The distance between Sarah and the lights was marginally bigger, with an increase in aperture to f5.6 to compensate.
D3 1/60th sec ISO200 24-70mm f5.6
