Surfing Portraits with Samuel
Today Sam and I headed out the McLain State Park to see what was happening with the shore ice and to take some time to try and create a cool portrait. I don’t know that we succeeded, but it was a good time even though it was much colder and windier than we expected. The most challenging part of the whole ordeal was getting my softbox to stay put. The breakwall was coated in a thick layer of ice and on top of that was a thin layer of fresh snow… think ball bearings on linoleum.
Anyway, I found a chunk of ice to brace the stand against, but I ended up needing Mari to help keep the softbox pointed in the right direction. I don’t really like the way the light cuts across the snow and I think that raising the softbox would help soften the line and would create more of a pool of light and less of a slash. I wish Lightware would make a grid available for the FourSquare softbox. I think it would be super helpful.
Below you can see some images of our setup and and ambient shot. I wish we could have played around longer. I would have like to try a greater variety of perspectives… but it was cold and we didn’t want to be out all day.
Here is a shot showing the ambient light before adding light and gels.
Here’s a shot of Mari helping control the light.
Here’s an ambient shot of Sam and his board.
And finally, here is one of my favorite images from the session. I sorta wish the breakwall were a little wider, it was less windy, or I had a really strong/sturdy boom. I would have liked to shoot straight down the breakwall, but we didn’t want to get too close to the edge with the lights with the wind and the open water. I’ve got some ideas… but they are going to have to wait. Keep in mind that we were shooting mid-day in the winter. I had 4 sb26′s in the FourSquare @ full power.
Anyway, I’ve got a ton of projects in the tubes at this moment and will hopefully be able to share some stuff soon as things get approved… if they get approved.
Later!
