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This is me taking a break from editing my Hawaii photos and having a go at some newly acquired studio lights and backdrop.

This photo session actually came about in a very strange way. Ashley and I were lying in bed with mummy who was already fast asleep (I think it was 9.30pm?) and Ashley was still making lots of noise. Or rather, talking to herself. She obviously wasn’t sleepy at all and when I asked her what she wanted to do, she said “Take picture.” When your two year old says she wants to take pictures, you take pictures! And, did I say mummy was already fast asleep? Heh heh…

This series is Ashley wearing a princess dress from Tom & Stephanie and a tiara from a Barbie princess toy set.

We started session with Ashley doing some classic show-off-my-dress-and-look-at-how-cute-I-am poses.

Swaying with the dress.

A very long 5 minutes later, Ashley was bored of standing at the same spot so she took off her tiara and started dancing around. This is where the musical piano comes in (to keep the tempo) and lots of patience (stay in the frame, stay in the frame!). This was also a good opportunity to practice photographing dynamic poses. Dynamic posing refers to the style of adding movement, or implying movement, through gestures.

Turning around and looking at the lights.

I want to be a ballerina!

Another 5 minutes, and Ashley was off to bed, this time exhausted and quite ready to hit the sack. She was definitely seeing stars at this point! (Did’ya get the joke? )

Photography Notes:

1. Both the main/key light and accent light were set to F8 (measured using an incident meter at 1/200s)
2. A 12-degree honeycomb grid was placed in front of the accent light to focus a nice outline of light on Ashley’s left. On hindsight, a smaller grid might have worked better (i.e. bigger spread of light) because Ashley couldn’t stay at one spot.
3. Music is a must to keep the rhythm or tempo of the shoot and to keep Ashley entertained! This is certainly a useful tip when shooting studio portraits in general.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 2:37 am and is filed under Family, Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.