I’ve been having some issues with the host of my sites. Their databases have been down pretty often (and for long times) recently. I talked to them and they are working on it (or so they say). I hope those downtimes will be a thing of the past soon. The host issues are the reason why I couldn’t keep my promise to post more of Suzanne in the weekend, but here they are.

Since it was only the second time Suzanne posed for a camera (and the first time wasn’t a succes), I thought it would be important to start in a way that would make her feel comfortable. Usually that means keeping it simple. So we started out without make-up, casual clothes, interesting location, natural poses, …

Having a relaxed subject is so important to me that I wouldn’t have minded if we didn’t make any usable pictures in the first hour. But I didn’t have to worry anyway, Suzanne turned out to be a natural.

To keep the lighting simple as well, we just looked for the best spots of natural light. The picture below is done with my ‘under cover technique’. The dense canopy is the cover and blocks any direct light coming from above. That way only directional yet soft light gets too Suzanne.

A small wardrobe change later, we let the sun provide a nice hair light. You just need to expose for the face (in the shadow) and NOT for the direct sunlight in the hair. Your camera’s light meter might have some trouble with the bright highlights and wants to underexpose in those circumstances. That’s why I usually work in manual mode (using spot metering might help too).
This kind of setup usually works best when the model is standing on a bright surface. The light that reflects of this surface fills in the shadows in the face. If you’d take the same picture on a dark surface, you’d get a bit more shadow under the nose and eyes).

Don’t worry if the surface your model is standing on isn’t bright. You can still use the technique by putting a reflector, bed sheet, piece of styrofoam, … on the ground. I personally think that this looks way more natural and subtle than holding a reflector under the model’s face.

A club sandwich later, we were joined by the fantastic make-up artist Inge VDB who performed some of her magic. I don’t work with MUA’s that often but I do realise that a good MUA provides an added value to my work. Just like in photography, technique is important in make-up. But the real talent of someone like Inge is that she uses her techniques to improve the story that I want to tell in the picture.

During this whole day, I used mainly available light only but I couldn’t resist making a few with flash anyway. In the picture below, we used a speedlight with shoot through umbrella to camera left for the main light and a second speedlight with grid on the opposite side for a hair light. This picture was shot a bit after noon on the street.

The speedlights got back in the bag because it would be stupid not to use the fantastic light conditions mother nature provided us with on this day.

None of these pictures went through photoshop yet, just a touch of Lightroom 2.0.

We finished with a bit of an edgier look in clothing and make-up to get some more variation in the set of pictures.

Inge, thanks for your magic
My Egyptian friend, thanks for referring Suzanne to me.
And Suzanne, thanks for this fantastic and fun shoot.