At least some of us were professionals.

Day 58 of Project 365. The model shoot.

There were over 20 students at the seminar today, so time with the models were limited. Two of the three models, five minutes each. It sounds like very little, but really, I don't know *how to pose someone* and that becomes very obvious when you are sitting across from a 6' tall beauty who is waiting for you to give her direction. 5 minutes felt like a half hour. I made a rule of sticking with my new EF 50mm f/1.4 USM, both the learn the lens a bit better, and to make me pay attention to my composition and re-compose with my feet.

Each of the models was in one of three lighting environments, and I chose to work with one model in natural light, and another in a four-light setup (primary, fill, hair and background) against a black paper background.

Here are the shots I took in the latter setup. The model, Ocean, is managed by Swish Model Management in Winnipeg.

This first shot wasn't exactly as planned. I asked her to cross her arms, turn three-quarters to the camera, pop out her hips and cock an eyebrow. I was looking for a mischievous look, but she raised her left eyebrow and it's lost in her hairline. As such this looks slightly business-like:



For her second shot, I had her seated, leaning towards the camera slightly, with a hint of grin. I wanted to shoot her slightly from above to catch the white of her eye below the iris. I managed to get that, but the effect on the front of her shirt is not particularly flattering:



My favorite shot with Ocean started with a desire to shoot something similar to 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', seated facing away, looking back over her shoulder, but with solid eye contact, and with her lips just parted. I like the catchlights in this shot particularly:



My second model, also from Swish, was Mache. Mache was a classic eastern european beauty and almost impossibly tall. While I worked on tighter shots with Ocean, I only did one tight shot with Mache, similar to the last shot with Ocean in composition, but with a much tighter DOF and much stronger light:



Mache's eyes were an amazing focal point, but I wanted to work on some full body shots as well. This was challenging with a 50mm lens on a crop body in tight areas. We had a couch to use in the natural light area, so I took advantage of that. I like this shot well enough, but I think with the similar colour of her shirt and the couch caused her to blend into the background a little too much:



My final shot of the day, and my favourite, is taken in the same area, but recomposed with a stronger backlight from the main window. Mache was, as I mentioned, quite tall, and I wanted to exaggerate her arms and legs in my final shot. I had her kick her feet out, cross her arms and lean forward on the her elbows. She chose to look out of frame and I think it works well. This is, to my eye, my best shot of the day:



Day 58 of my Project 365 was pretty much awesome.