apolloflux

Photoshoot - Paparazzi with Tayla

Added 2023-08-15 10:42:47 +0000 UTC

I'm back from holiday and getting back into the groove of shooting and editing now. Apologies for the break being longer than I had suggested it would be, I needed a bit more of a break from social media than I had anticipated.

This is a set I shot with Tayla on Saturday. We hadn't done a shoot for a few months as she is working all hours, and when came over we didn't really have much of a plan at all. She wanted something a bit more commercial for her portfolio as a dancer, so I set up my Lastolite Hi-Lite and we rattled off a few sets with a blown white background. Then we sat at my computer and I showed her the images from an agency shoot I did on Friday. I had taken my Pixapro (aka Godox) Ad200 Pro with me as well as a hand held boom, as I wanted to experiment with shooting with flash on the go. I was happy with the images, but had already worked out how I could do them better.

Tayla loved them, and said that it was a vibe that her musician partner had been wanting as the promo images for his new dance track that is due to be released soon. Neither of us had anywhere to shoot off to, so we raided my outfit room for a few pieces, and I grabbed the flash and boom and took her off to an under-road tunnel that I have shot in a few times.

To shoot these I have mounted the AD200 on the handheld telescopic boom. For some I have held it up and out to camera left, and for others I have pulled it in right next to the camera lens. We anted some that had a blurred effect, so I played with dragging the shutter. So the shutter speed ranges from 1/160s down to about 1/2s. There was a fair amount of trial and error - if, after the flash, both Tayla moved and I move the camera then they came out with too much motion blur.

We are both over the moon with the images - we wanted something raw and edgy, as if shot by the paparazzi. I initially toned them in Lightroom, but after retouching I felt they were too clean, so I had a further play in Lightroom until I got to these final versions.