Got a shoot on Sunday...advice welcome!

[Phate]

Hi All,

for my hairdresser friend - as part of her course she has to arrange a photoshoot with a model and stuff and has asked me to the photography.

Now, unfortunately, the model is my friend Callum...now he may be built like a brick **** house, but I'm not gay

anyway...the shoot will be done at the hairdressers house. She is going to put a plain white sheet up and Callum will be half naked - wearing black jeans. He is a white male, brown hair.

Now as far as lighting goes the hairdresser said she read on the internet how to make her own softboxes and will be making 2 of them (I'm not sure how well these are going to work) but I know her house has a lot of windows so it's always nice and bright in there, so I think I may play tricks with natural lighting...

For the shoot I'll be using my 350D (im a week away from ordering the 40D ) and I think the best lens will be the nifty fifty...

Just wondering if anyone had any general advise really, the hairdressers sister who does beauty will be doing his body work to make his muscles more defined so it should make my job easier with the post processing - I think poses will be thought of there and then on the spot...

Thanks all

 

[Shoei]

I'd say go with the natural light as much as possible, using reflectors as required.
Saying that, never done this kind of stuff before but would the chance to have a go.

 

[Irish_Tom]

Do you have two flash guns and a way of syncing them? Natural light would probably be best but it's always good to give the sun a helping hand.

I'd watch out for white backdrop with black jeans and dark hair as well. Might mess up your metering.

Get enough light onto it and it wont matter too much though.

Panzer

 

[InvaderGIR]

Well I did one a couple weeks back...asking about stuff, results.

Make sure that you have deadly flat (ironed) sheets, also something to think about is the colour of the floor, as you can see in some of my pics, I was using two sheets (as one wasn't long enough) to cover some of the floor to remove attention from the floor.

Use natural light, it can be a great asset, unless it's a dull day, in which case you are going to need some directional lights to light the subject well and not cast nasty shadows.

One thing you may not think about but is very important is space. Make sure you have space to move around and take the pictures, and make sure there is space for the model to be a few feet from the backdrop to ensure you don't end up with it in focus.

Off the top of my head that's all I can think about from my experience. I should be doing another one this weekend, but will use a few ironed sheets and am unsure about lighting as I don't have brilliant lighting here.

Due to the light at my previous attempt being dire I found that using a flashgun on top of the camera made it much better, but it has a directional head, which meant I could bounce of walls etc. (especially as I was in a room with brilliant white walls).

InvG

 

[colinuk]

Get a reflector under his chin, or at least something that reflects light under his chin to define it more.

Its all about light, take your time setting up, take lots of shots from all angles and see what they are like before you go there, use a brush as the model if you need to as it will help you understand what is going on with light.

Im not sure about white sheets, id take some other colours too just in case.

Good luck though.