My most willing and very talented model is Anna Martina, 7 going on 14. She does her own hair and makeup, requires virtually no retouching, takes direction very well and is a prize. (I assure you I have parental approval to use her pictures.)
The setup includes a beauty dish high on the left of camera and white paper on the posing table to act as a reflector. I noticed the I sometimes get the paper in the images but I thought it looked quite good. If you don't think so, please comment and offer suggestions. There is also a hair light directly overhead to help pop her off the black background. This is all pretty standard stuff. What makes it Kevin Ames is having the camera on a tripod, tethered to my laptop and using an X-Rite Gray Scale and Balance card. After metering the exposure I shot an image with the model holding the gray scale and used EOS Utility to upload to the laptop. In the utility I opened the image in Bridge, did white balance on the gray bar of the card and then put droppers on the white and black, mainly to ensure that the white end of the exposure wasn't over about 245. I backed down about 1/2 stop from the meter. This gives a superb exposure and as long as you are using the same lighting and outfits and are using good studio lights, the exposure should be about perfect for a series.
With my second most willing but utterly most difficult and demanding model, Marna, I added a rim light behind her ... it has a reflector with barn doors limiting the light spill. I also tried adding a red gel to a background light but it didn't work and I decided it wasn't the right thing anyway. Marna, like Anna, can pretty much go through a series of poses without much direction. She does, however, insist on a lot of control and has her own thoughts on what she wants. In this shoot she specifically wanted her bangs in her eyes and wanted a tough/powerful look more than soft glamor or sexy.
Did I mention that Marna is very firm about having her own way at the photoshoot?
Finally, here's a BTS (Behind The Scenes) image of the setup. The beauty dish on the upper left is a Bowens QUADX head with a Supersoft 600 Kit which is a deep white reflector with two diffusion panels. The overhead light is a reflector with barn doors as is the rim light which you can't see as it is behind the model. The camera is on a tripod just to the left of Marna and is tethered with a 10' USB cable to the laptop which is on top of a wire drawer stand to the right.
Have any questions? Please ask.
In the meantime, Travel Safely!
Dwight
