Glamor: Janie Arnold

Every time I start blogging I am overtaken by events, but I am trying to keep posting. And while I will continue with the equipment review I think my Glamor Project is more interesting at the moment. The History: I bought a Bowens QUADX studio strobe system about four years ago as I had always wanted to try out those big fancy lights we always see in the "behind the scenes" photographs of models working. The images can really be stunning, but it takes a bit more care, time and experience than is immediately obvious. I used them a few times on family with some decent results. Then, about two and a half years ago we moved to our present house where there was an office and another room I am using as a studio. The studio is 10' x 17' with 9' ceiling ... way too small to be effective, but large enough to allow me to practice and experiment. It has taken me the last two years to finally get it mostly equipped ... there are still odds and ends like flags and gels that I need.

Back a couple of posts I talked about shooting Amber Rhodes, rising country singer/songwriter. I shot her for my friend Rick Barker. But my real goal is to learn to shoot glamor. And to that end I have joined ModelMayhem.com, an online resource for models, photographers and others in the industry. I also made a couple of contacts through Scott Sneddon, an Air Force sergeant and photographer currently deployed in Korea. Among much else, Scott introduced me to Janie Arnold, a 21 year old aspiring model and fitness student. While I have additional shoots in the pipeline and several more scheduled with various models, I'm going to briefly cover my two experimental shoots with Janie.

For the first shoot I wanted to work with a white seamless background along with my white studio walls and ceiling. I used two medium softboxes and some background lights in a very simple setup. As you will see in the accompanying images they are a bit overexposed, similar to the Amber Rhodes images ... an effect that I generally like. For the second shoot, I used black seamless, draped off the walls, used a beauty light for a main light, a softbox for fill, a gelled snoot for an accent light and low reflector/barn door head for side lighting ... a very different look.

I'm not really facile enough to give instruction in lighting at this point. I have spent countless hours reading forums and tutorials but it just takes a lot of hands on time to get the hang of it and I'm not there yet. So, enjoy the images. I will have additional glamor sessions to post in the future.

You can also see these images and many more from these sessions on my website in the Glamor Project section.

Be Safe!

Dwight