World's Most Patient Portrait Photography Model...

I have been taking portraits for many years, in fact the earliest photos I can remember taking were portraits with my old Box Brownie. I still have those photographs and they are some of my favourite pics of my family.

The biggest problem for me through the years has been finding patient subjects to experiment on while I try out poses, lighting configurations etc. ...but no more! I have found the ultimate model who never complains, whines that they are hungry or needs to go for a toilet break. Meet my new plastic fantastic cheapo headshot model from Amazon.

Now I can experiment to my hearts content without being pressured to feel guilty because they are tired or their neck hurts or the flash is starting to make them jumpy. (Bunch of whiners...) 😜  

Also, never blinks. It's an all round win!

These were all taken with my trusty D750 and either the 80mm f1.8 or the 24-120mm f4 at 120mm. The lights are three Nikon Speedlights, an SB-910, an SB-700 and an SB-600. All were controlled remotely in separate groups by my SU-800 Commander that allows me to adjust each light simply, easily and quickly. The light modifiers are all from Elinchrom and include softboxes, snoots, reflectors, grids, etc. and are mounted to Godox adapters that my Speedlights clamp into. I have rolls of coloured gels that I cut to size and insert to change the colour of the lights. Backdrops are either fabric mounted to a backdrop stand or the bare off-white studio wall, whichever takes my fancy at the time to achieve the look I want.

 

All photos were taken in RAW format and processed in RawTherapee on an iMac running Linux which is part of an experiment in seeing if I can adapt my workflow completely to an opensource software environment. So far it looks quite positive... more about that coming in a future post.

 

 

Plastic head is mounted onto an old mic stand from my singing days. Fully height adjustable!

I will be doing more detailed portrait set-ups in good time and hope to shed some light (yes thats's right... I'm punny) on how I get the results I am after. Stay tuned, or check in periodically, or whatever it is one says about blog posts... 🥸