Improvisation Shoot with Erika

One evening last week Erika came by the studio. We ended up chatting most of the time but we eventually we did a short improvisation shoot.

I’ve shot Erika many times over the years and writing this blogpost made me wonder when it all started. In my archives I found what’s probably the first picture I shot of Erika. (below on the left). That was before I got into photography. Kobe was only one year old at that time, so that was back in 2004. I did my first photo shoot with Erika in 2006 (picture on the right).

Erika has had (and still has) a big impact on my photography. The total trust between the two of us has always allowed me to push both my technique and creativity further. Her pictures have gotten me clients and she even got me one of my regular clients by stating that she would only be their model if they hired me as the photographer. She’s also a great sales incentive for my Motivational Light DVD and the GF1 Guerrilla CPXL video. But most importantly, she’s an amazing friend with whom I’ve shared many great conversations, laughs and who has picked me up when I was down on more than one occasion.

Before I become to0 mellow, here are some of the results from our 30 minute improvisation shoot.

All images were shot with the X-Pro1, X-E1, 35mm and 18-55. The first picture in this post was lit with the pilot light of an Elinchrom RX300 with a medium softbox and a reflector. We then moved on to double halogen work lights.

For our final set of images we used only a single 40W lightbulb in an unfinished part of the studio that’s currently only used to store junk.

Maybe I should do a book in a couple of years: “Erika, 10 years in front of my lens”