Sheri at Tai-Da

Taipei seems to be a popular destination for American models this summer. Fresh from the shoot with Jen a couple of weeks ago, I met up with Sheri.  Hailing from New York and represented by Abrams Artists Agency, Sheri is in Taipei for a couple of months and we met up on a rainy Sunday and headed to National Taiwan University aka Tai-Da. We had to seek out some sheltered areas as most of the places I’d originally planned to shoot in where too exposed to the rain, which was quite heavy at times. Still, Tai-Da has a lot of covered walkways and overhangs so we were able to get some good images. Images were all shot with a Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200mm f4L and 580EX II speedlight. The flash was triggered by the ever reliable Elinchrom Skyports. More detailed shooting notes after the jump.

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f5.6 1/200 at 159mm

For the opening image, we used a 50×70 softbox on a 2.4m lightstand with the speedlight set to 1/4 power. The light was placed just out of the frame to the left. As well, a 5-in-1 collapsible reflector was used on the gold side to throw a little warmth into the image.

Sheri @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f8 1/200 at 154mm

This next image used almost the same lighting setup as the first. Shot in a slightly different location, the softbox was positioned just out of frame to the right (Sheri’s left) and the reflector was used on its white side. Other than the different aperture and focal length, everything else was the same.

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f5.6 1/200 at 154mm

Another one with very similar settings. The lens was opened up a stop from the last one and a different location was used. Once again, the lighting came from the softbox positioned in front of her, just outside the left of the frame. The gold reflector was used again for some warmth.

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f5.6 1/80 at 78mm

A change of clothes and time to try something different. This wasn’t quite as successful as I’d hoped, mainly due to the constant passage of people walking and cycling through. Every time the scene would clear of people, we’d get one quick shot and then have to wait another few minutes. Here we used the same softbox setup with the light positioned behind the arch to Sheri’s left. My wife and studio manager Selina is crouched behind the first pillar on the Sheri’s right aiming the gold reflector back into the scene.

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f5.6 1/200 at 122mm

Again we’re using very similar settings for the camera and lights as we did for the other ones. The light stand is raised high so that it’s aiming down at Sheri, just outside the left of the frame. I had to burn in the door a little in processing to even things out but it was very minimal.

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f5.6 1/125 at 98mm

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f6.3 1/200 at 176mm

Lighting for these two was pretty much the same. Both have a 1/4 power flash in the softbox just out of frame to the left. In the first one, a shutter speed of 1/125 allows some of the ambient light into the background whereas the second one with a shutter speed of 1/200 kills most of the ambient. Adjustment of the blacks in Lightroom takes care of any remaining patches of ambient light.

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f5.6 1/200 at 135mm

This next one marks the last image that the softbox was used for. I took a bit of a cue from Zack Arias here and introduced movement to the shot. The light was positioned to Sheri’s right and the gold reflector was placed on the ground immediately in front of her.

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f8 1/200 at 70mm

A final change of clothes and location for the last few images. By now it was close to sunset but the rain and clouds meant there was none. Not a problem at all as we can easily make our own. I slapped a full cut of CTO onto the speedlight and then added a 1/4″ gridspot over the top. Voila, we have sunset. Goes to show the versatility of off-camera lighting.

Sheri C at Tai-Da. ISO400 f8 1/200 at 200mm

The same setup was used here. Full CTO under the gridspot. Sheri was on a second floor balcony with the light placed off to her left. I shot up from the ground under the balcony. You can see in the background lighting how gray the day actually was.

Sheri C @ Tai-Da. ISO400 f8 1/200 98mm

Little bit of clowning around for the final image to sum up how the day went. The three of us spent just as much time laughing and joking around as we did shooting. For this, I used a tungsten white balance coupled with CTO on the light to leave Sheri with a slightly warm daylight glow while everything else went bluish.

If you’re in Taiwan and are interesting in learning how to work with lights on location, I’m going to be running a small workshop in early October. Look for a full announcement in the next week or so. Thank you.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Light, Living and tagged with model, portrait. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.