Saturday Tease: Carolena

Nikolai

Well, guess what! I broke my year-old fear of high key and finally did it! :ivar
I had this lovely girl today who agreed to comply with my experimenting, and it turned out pretty decent, methinks! :rolleyes

#1: This is how my room-turned-studio looks in high-key lighting. Surprisingly, all it took was two AB8000 on the sides and one ProFoto Compact-R 600 as the fill/main. I also tried the extra AB800 as a the key, but it was too much.
The key was the tileboards I picked at Home Depot today for $19.95 a piece.




#2: Of course, it looks much better with a pretty girl in a pretty dress instead of a stepladder:



#3: Especially if she's showing off her legs:



#4: Or a little bit more than legs:



#5: I also wanted to share some makeup shots (Helen was kind enough to assist):



#6: Boy, it took some efforts and time:



#7: The setup table can give you some ideas of what was cooking;-):




#8: Almost done:



#9: "The beauty is in the eye of the beholder":



#10: And of course, the mandatory mirror shot: :rofl



Enjoy! The real stuff will be coming shortly, hopefully next week!

This post was made with the assistance of Star*Explorer

Ann McRae

No way - you don't get time to process and post the rest! We wanna see 'em!

Very promising set up Nik, but where are the tiles???

ann

Nikolai

Ann McRae wrote:

No way - you don't get time to process and post the rest! We wanna see 'em!

I don't show drafts to the general public, they are for the model's eyes only:-)

Very promising set up Nik, but where are the tiles???
ann

Thanks, Ann!
Actually, there were two versions fo this thing in Home Depot, one with tile imitation and one without! Why on Earth did I choose the second one!

divamum

Fascinating, Nik - I'll be very interested to see your final series!

Also, thanks for including the closeup makeup shots

Scott_Quier

I picked up the smooth surface (also from Home Depot, but for $14.00 each) mostly on the basis of this website. The smooth ones seemed, to me at least, to offer a better opportunity for some very smooth reflections/shadows of the models.

My setup is a little more complex. Tomorrow it'll be interesting to see how well it works for real!

Sam

Nikolal,

You have come sooooooooo far. Really good work. Thanks for posting.

Sam

Nikolai

divamum wrote:

Fascinating, Nik - I'll be very interested to see your final series!

Also, thanks for including the closeup makeup shots

Thank you!
I love catching makeup stuff, since it's a true PJ work, which adds nicely to the "everything's setup" studio one.

Nikolai

Scott_Quier wrote:

I picked up the smooth surface (also from Home Depot, but for $14.00 each) mostly on the basis of this website. The smooth ones seemed, to me at least, to offer a better opportunity for some very smooth reflections/shadows of the models.

My setup is a little more complex. Tomorrow it'll be interesting to see how well it works for real!

Yeah, that site's description provided the final push for me
I was uncertain initially if I need to add all those folded doors and such (and I still plan on experimenting more, this was the first draft), but this simple setup worked fine and got me pretty much where I wanted to be. Now, that I "got there", I can play around a tweak little things, but at least I know the stuff works..

Oh yeah, and one more thing setup wise: these white plastic sheets are really thin and soft. It makes them easy to handle (you can roll them for storage, bend for "infinity" effects, etc.) but if put on top of a think carpeting (my case) their very softness make them an easy prey for pointy heels. So I had to put two layers, which seems to solidify the assembly enough to prevent the heel stucking...

HTH

Nikolai

Sam wrote:

Nikolal,

You have come sooooooooo far. Really good work. Thanks for posting.

Sam

Thanks man!
Yeah, considering my first HK attempt 9 month ago... yuk :puke



I guess you can call this a little improvement



(it's not a final image, just SOOC, so hold your C&C horses:-)

NeilL

Ya know, Nik, with all that energy, from the lights, your gear and you, concentrating on that one small spot in your studio, it's gonna soon happen for *s u r e* that the most perfect model you can ever imagine is going to just spontaneously materialise out of the air and say "Nikitchka, darling, at last we've found each other "

:hide


BTW awesome, just awesome!

Schnauzer

I believe you could call that an improvement Nik. Nice work.

Nikolai

NeilL wrote:

Ya know, Nik, with all that energy, from the lights, your gear and you, concentrating on that one small spot in your studio, it's gonna soon happen for *s u r e* that the most perfect model you can ever imagine is going to just spontaneously materialise out of the air and say "Nikitchka, darling, at last we've found each other "

:hide


BTW awesome, just awesome!

!
Thanks!

Nikolai

Schnauzer wrote:

I believe you could call that an improvement Nik. Nice work.

Thank you, Ron!
Today's tease coming up:-)

heatherfeather

Scott_Quier wrote:

I picked up the smooth surface (also from Home Depot, but for $14.00 each) mostly on the basis of this website.

THAT was a great read. I just spent the last hour or so absorbing it all. Now off to Home Depot to get my own tile sheets and do some playing!

(Great set up shots, Nik, but that tutorial just made my day!)

Scott_Quier

heatherfeather wrote:

THAT was a great read. I just spent the last hour or so absorbing it all. Now off to Home Depot to get my own tile sheets and do some playing!

(Great set up shots, Nik, but that tutorial just made my day!)

Glad to have been of service.

Nikolai

heatherfeather wrote:

THAT was a great read. I just spent the last hour or so absorbing it all. Now off to Home Depot to get my own tile sheets and do some playing!

(Great set up shots, Nik, but that tutorial just made my day!)

I agree that's a great HK tut, certainly was the missing link in my case.

And funny how prices are different: the tut said it was $10 per sheet, Scott got his for $15 each and I had to squeeze out $20 a piece

heatherfeather

Nikolai wrote:

I agree that's a great HK tut, certainly was the missing link in my case.

And funny how prices are different: the tut said it was $10 per sheet, Scott got his for $15 each and I had to squeeze out $20 a piece

And I'll likely have to pay $30... Ah the joys of living in AK.

Nikolai

heatherfeather wrote:

And I'll likely have to pay $30... Ah the joys of living in AK.

Well, you're from Wasilla, no less, you have friends in high places...

chrismoore

Hi Nikolai,
I really like your photos and set up. I've never done studio shooting like this, but I have been thinking for some time about getting into it. I'm not very familiar with equipment and I tried to look up some of the accessories you listed (at B&H, Adorama, Amazon), but couldn't find them. Do you have any links that I could look at?
Thanks
Chris

Nikolai

chrismoore wrote:

Hi Nikolai,
I really like your photos and set up. I've never done studio shooting like this, but I have been thinking for some time about getting into it. I'm not very familiar with equipment and I tried to look up some of the accessories you listed (at B&H, Adorama, Amazon), but couldn't find them. Do you have any links that I could look at?
Thanks
Chris

Chris, thank you!
I would recommend starting with AlienBees website, they have a small but nice one-brand selection and a lot of additional info

Wolftep

As always Nikolai, a very nice set. I always enjoy looking at your work.

Nikolai

Wolftep wrote:

As always Nikolai, a very nice set. I always enjoy looking at your work.

Thank you, Tom!