Indoor Location Lighting with Megan Fox
Sometimes when talent is not available to come to your location or studio you must bring the studio to them. Lets talk about setting up shop at Megan Fox's place.
When you have the opportunity to photograph such an incredibly beautiful talent like Megan Fox you adjust real quick to their schedule. I had the opportunity to photograph Megan Fox for the cover of a magazine and I needed to do the shoot at her house. I needed to plan this all out and make sure I had all the tools to create a wonderful photo with Megan.
I needed to bring a backdrop as I was very familiar with the house and for sure needed a cleaner background so that text can be placed over the back for the magazine cover.
Lets talk about how I achieved the setup up and look for the photo below.
My camera settings are as follows: Nikon D300 F-stop f/8, Exposure 1/125, ISO-640, Focal Length 70mm
So the first thing I decided on was the type of backdrop I wanted to use. I always like to search for different fabrics and materials to use. In this case I found this great vintage wallpaper that was a very interesting color and had felt patterns on it. I really thought this will work out well as I knew there would be no reflection and the light would get absorbed right into it. This is perfect for shooting on location that you might not have enough room to pull back.
So for lighting with this shot I used front light that was a 750 watt strobe with a medium soft box it was pulled back about 12 feet from Megan. This gave me enough light with my camera settings without getting hot spots on her skin.
For my background I pointed a hot light that was about 65 watts at the wallpaper this was placed just behind Megan completely out of view. As you can see it gave me a nice spot-light effect around the back of her and still maintained the detail in the wallpaper. Megan has very dark hair so I need an accent light in order to give me some highlights on the hair. For this I used another strobe with a very narrow snout pointed at Megan from the back right side of her. As you can see on the left of the photo this gave me some really nice high-lights on the dark hair.
I wanted to feature Megans legs and of course that gave me a great opportunity to shoot down low and really give the illusion of really long legs. We decided on nothing but a black t-shirt so it would give us great contrast with the backdrop. I knew her hair would not get lost against the black shirt as the light would give some high-lights with the sheen in her hair. I was really happy with this photo and they way everything worked from color to textures. I also really like the hard shadow under her left leg onto the blanket she is sitting on. Don't be afraid of shadows they really ad to your photo.
Megan is a pro and although she hates looking at photos of herself she knows how to give the looks. At one point she even mentioned she thinks she looks like a boy.
Over-all for setting up shop at someones house this was a great photo and look. This would take a little more advanced photographer to really achieve this style but with a little understanding and practice it is very rewarding. Happy shooting - Peace - Christopher
Sometimes when talent is not available to come to your location or studio you must bring the studio to them. Lets talk about setting up shop at Megan Fox's place.
When you have the opportunity to photograph such an incredibly beautiful talent like Megan Fox you adjust real quick to their schedule. I had the opportunity to photograph Megan Fox for the cover of a magazine and I needed to do the shoot at her house. I needed to plan this all out and make sure I had all the tools to create a wonderful photo with Megan.
I needed to bring a backdrop as I was very familiar with the house and for sure needed a cleaner background so that text can be placed over the back for the magazine cover.
Lets talk about how I achieved the setup up and look for the photo below.
My camera settings are as follows: Nikon D300 F-stop f/8, Exposure 1/125, ISO-640, Focal Length 70mm
So for lighting with this shot I used front light that was a 750 watt strobe with a medium soft box it was pulled back about 12 feet from Megan. This gave me enough light with my camera settings without getting hot spots on her skin.
For my background I pointed a hot light that was about 65 watts at the wallpaper this was placed just behind Megan completely out of view. As you can see it gave me a nice spot-light effect around the back of her and still maintained the detail in the wallpaper. Megan has very dark hair so I need an accent light in order to give me some highlights on the hair. For this I used another strobe with a very narrow snout pointed at Megan from the back right side of her. As you can see on the left of the photo this gave me some really nice high-lights on the dark hair.
I wanted to feature Megans legs and of course that gave me a great opportunity to shoot down low and really give the illusion of really long legs. We decided on nothing but a black t-shirt so it would give us great contrast with the backdrop. I knew her hair would not get lost against the black shirt as the light would give some high-lights with the sheen in her hair. I was really happy with this photo and they way everything worked from color to textures. I also really like the hard shadow under her left leg onto the blanket she is sitting on. Don't be afraid of shadows they really ad to your photo.
Megan is a pro and although she hates looking at photos of herself she knows how to give the looks. At one point she even mentioned she thinks she looks like a boy.
Over-all for setting up shop at someones house this was a great photo and look. This would take a little more advanced photographer to really achieve this style but with a little understanding and practice it is very rewarding. Happy shooting - Peace - Christopher