Untitled

Untitled

Originally uploaded by The Real Darren Stone

Things are going really well pushing myself in different directions with the shoots. This is Natasha,an amazing muse who is able to come up with image ideas and pull them off with the perfect styling.

I am a huge fan of Helmut Newton and Ellen von Unwerth. Whenever I branch out in unknown territory I try to emulate photographers that I love.
Hopefully  I will be able to find my own vision and bring some of my own feeling s and models into a style that will be my own.

I shot this with a wide angle with a the single White Lightning 1600X into the Photogenic Eclipse 34″ Umbrella. I added some Lucisart to the post processing.

Untitled

Untitled

Originally uploaded by The Real Darren Stone

After taking a brief hiatus over the holidays I am back shooting for my fashion portfolio. I am feeling more at ease with the lighting set ups and so i am trying to push the boundaries to find my own vision. I have been doing some study online and am planning to go to Los Angeles in June for a two day retouching/business/fashion workshop with Melissa Rodwell.

Feeling confined in the studio I moved out into the living room for this shoot. It gives me much more room to use the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L to get a compressed perspective.

The lighting is basically Rembrandt lighting with a single White Lightning 1600X shot into a 32″ silver Eclipse umbrella

The post processing was fairly simple. I have discovered a trick in CS4 to get this kind of edgy look and it works quite well. You make a Hue/Saturation layer. Then pull the hue slider all the way to the left then change the blending mode to soft light.

The model is Natasha Enquist. Natasha did all of the styling and has great theatrical abilities, which really makes it possible to get these edgy images.

Natasha

Natasha

Originally uploaded by darrenstone

I have to say this was this was the most fun I have during a shoot. Even had the cops show up to find out what all the bursts of light were about in the street and sky around my condo.
It was also rewarding because thinking about the lighting has become second nature and I was able to concentrate on the subject. Practice is the only way to achieve this. Just doing as any sittings as you can and making lots of mistakes.
The image is a product of complete collaboration. Once Natasha got into character, my part as the photographer was just clicking the shutter.
The lighting was a single White Lightning 1600X at full power diffused with an umbrella directly in front of Natasha.
Post-processing in CS4 included darkening of the eyebrows and mustache, with enhancement of the eyes and basic skin touch up.

Cadie

Cadie

Originally uploaded by darrenstone

I had a shoot tonight with Cadie a local Victoria model. Cadie is an excellent subject. She really has an awareness of what her body is doing in front of the camera. I have found that I am better off letting the model do their thing with little direction other than fine tuning of a pose or looking for styling details.
As far as lighting is concerned I have taken a step back using one diffused flash and a reflector. I am trying to stretch myself, but still find that in photography “less is more” works best for me. I am trying to make sure that the one light I have is in the perfect position in relation to the model. This consists of moving the flash up and down depending on what pose the model is in. So for this shot the flash was lowered to about three feet high. Cadie pulled off the perfect “She Wolf” pose.

Slipknot

Slipknot

Originally uploaded by darrenstone

Performance shots are always an adventure. You never really know what to expect. Press photographers are usually allowed to shoot the first three songs with no flash from the pit in front of the stage. But that can vary depending on the artist.
Whoever did the lighting for Slipknot knew what they were doing. The best lighting has white light on the artist and colored gels in the background. When the colored gels are on the performer it is almost impossible to get a good shot.
It’s best to have two camera bodies, one with a telephoto lens and one with a wide angle. You don’t have time to juggle lenses in the pit and you are likely to drop a lens when a two hundred pound dude lands on you after flying out of the mosh pit. I got slammed pretty good once at Slipknot, but I had both camera straps around my neck.

Marie

Marie

Originally uploaded by darrenstone

Had a fun shoot with a delightful young model Marie, a Victoria high school student. We did some beauty shots and then experimented with some action pics.
The flash syncs at 125 sec but the flash freezes the motion quite nicely at full power 1/600 sec flash duration. I did get some blur so I think I’ll try the 1/4 power next time, which has a 1/1800 sec flash duration.
We did quite a few shots with Marie spinning in one spot. Then just had to pic out a shot where the hair a pose worked out. I used two White Lightnings diffused with umbrellas, one directly in front and one as a hair light.
I did some clean up and shadow reduction in CS4.

Natasha

Natasha

Originally uploaded by darrenstone

Was fortunate enough to do another shoot with Natasha Enquist. Natasha is a multi-talented Victoria musician http://www.myspace.com/accordiongirl.
She is also a beautiful muse.
We shot for a few hours and got about six different looks, from high fashion to crazy fly through the air athletic images. This shot was captured with Canon 20D,Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM. I didn’t use the 5DM2 because I had to get close with the macro lens. EFS lenses don’t fit on the 5DM2 but the 60mm coverts to 96mm on the 20D, it makes a nice portrait lens. The 60mm is super sharp and shows amazing details.
The lighting was diffused with an umbrella and the mesh didn’t cause and lighting problems. I enhanced the eyes, lips and added some dimension on Photoshop.

Natasha

Natasha

Originally uploaded by darrenstone

This image has hard “Hollywood” lighting.
White Lightning 1600X with 11″ reflector as key light in front of Natasha and a White Lightning 1600X with a 7″ reflector as a hair/background light.
Just started experimenting with two lights,I’m trying to emulate lighting I see on Model Mayhem and the fashion mags. It’s good practce to decipher lighting set-ups and CS4 on the images I see. I am really drawn to this hard lighting. It gives crisp shadows with deep blacks. The 5DM2 also produces smooth deep blacks like a film camera.
The 17-35mm is a tricky portrait lens, but can give pleasing results. The perspective can slim the model down when used carefully, and the CS4 liquify filter can correct any distortion.

Camiel

Camiel

Originally uploaded by darrenstone

The hair is really the focus of this shot. It shows the capability of the White Lightning flash to freeze motion as well. You can get the model to fling their hair around and then pick out the one’s that look natural and kind of cool.
I bought a pen tablet today. It’s basically a tablet where you use a pen to paint the retouching in. The pen is pressure sensitive and it is defiantly the way to go. After a bit of eye hand coordination practice of course.
I think the retouching looks a bit more natural. I toned it down a bit after getting the tip to leave a few “crumbs ” behind. It’s basically a commercial food photographers trick to leave imperfections like crumbs in a image. In the retouching that adds interest and reality to the picture. It’s always the case that you go too far with new stuff because you are so excited with the effects you are getting. You see a lot of that in HDR photos on flickr.

Camiel

Camiel

Originally uploaded by darrenstone

This image is one of two styles we did as three-quarters fashion shots.
Posing the hands is usually the trickiest part on these shots as the hands become a focal point. I used a 17-35mm which adds a nice perspective.
Did some minor clean up and darkened some areas of the image. Camiel is great at posing and has a slender figure, so the three-quarter images came out nice.