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John Denton Lighting Lab - part 3 of 1 2 3 4 5 6

Published 01/08/2014

This was Jodie's first ever professional photo shoot and she had never shot nudes before. Understandably she was apprehensive and so we always get the first nude images out of the way as quickly as possible.

I asked her to step back into the interior of the shed so that the light was even from top to bottom. That made the shutter speed slower 1⁄125s. The slower speed allowed more light in making the old gate behind her an interesting background; the warm skin-tone contrasting with the green wood.

From the shed we took a walk out to the fields. There's a track through the middle that is wide open to the elements and totally devoid of shade or cover. We'd actually been shooting in amongst the crops using flash and were walking back when I saw the light hitting Jodie and the very natural look she had in a big baggy sweater. I asked her to turn her back to the sunshine and took a meter reading off her chest using matrix mode in camera. That gave me 1⁄1600s at f2.8, ISO 200. It was important to eliminate the sky or sunshine from the metering as I wanted her to be as bright as possible and the sky to bleach out. Whilst shooting I kept the lens at right angles to the sun as even with a shield I'd have got a lot of flare had I shot directly with the sun behind her. It was also important not to turn her head too much and produce hotspots on her skin. I didn't mind her hair bleaching out but didn't want ugly hotspots on the skin.

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1st Published 01/08/2014
last update 09/12/2022 14:55:53

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John Denton Lighting Lab - part 3 of 1 2 3 4 5 6