Photography is 10% inspiration and 90% moving furniture.
- Helmut Newton
These images of Taylor Mae were shot in my studio. And by that I mean my living room. Last minute. Because Oregon. Because rain.
The day before the shoot it started pouring. We had planned for an outdoor shoot, all day. I knew we'd be able to get a quick break in the rain to shoot a look or two outside, but we had set aside the whole day to shoot, and it was going to get real boring real quick if I couldn't come up with some indoor options.
Fortunately my living room has nice high vaulted ceilings allowing me to get a light up where I like it to contour the face and body properly. This is a 22" white beauty dish, no grid, no diffusion, slightly to right of camera just above eye level. A white V flat provides fill to camera left.
We shoved one couch out of the way against the wall, and I moved stuff out of one corner to gain some distance to allow the model to stand just far enough from the background to create some falloff, while giving me enough room to not be right up in her face with the lens.
I had this blue sheer monokini from a previous shoot that didn't get used. I knew I wanted to shoot it on a pink/magenta background. Of course, I didn't HAVE any pink or magenta or purple for that matter, background paper at home. I've got blue, green, white, thunder gray... no pink. So since no one in Eugene carries background paper anymore, and a trip to Portland last minute was out of the question, I had to improvise. I remember seeing 4-5 foot wide rolls of colored paper at Hobby Lobby for bulletin board use. The morning of the shoot I skated in there right at they opened and sure enough, they had pink. It was even matte finish. It was kind of thin, but hey, for $8 bucks it should do the trick for a one time use background.
A little last minute shopping, a leftover slingshot monokini, and a stand fan helped me transform the living room into a studio look last minute. If I didn't tell you. would you have guessed?
Don't rule out locations as an option too quickly. Some of the best shots come from the most unlikely of scenarios.
Nick