Shoot with my Neighbor

[Sean Setters]

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f/5, 160/sec, 100 ISO


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f/5, 160/sec, 100 ISO


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f/4.5, 160/sec, 100 ISO


Gear used: 50D, 17-55mm f/2.8 IS, 3 Vivitar 285HV flashes, 1 Cactus V2s trigger, 2 Wein Optical Peanut slaves, 3 lightstands, and a snoot on image #2. Generally, I had the mainlight camera right at full power shot through a white umbrella. One flash was camera left and shot onto the background (either bare or with a snoot), and one flash was bare, camera left, and used as a rim/hairlight.


I used FastStone Image Resizer to resize the images and add text to the bottom right. I found out about the free program by reading a forum post here at the TDP Community. My thanks to the poster for mentioning the program, as it's a fantastic little tool.

[Joel Bookhammer]

Really nice. My favorite is the first one, I like her expression and the playfullness of the image. Expecially the socks. Personally thought I find the stool, and stand behind heralittle distracting, but not too much.

[Sean Setters]

Yeah, the end table behind her is a little distracting. I try to do as little re-arranging of the furniture as possible (especially when shooting in someone else's home), because after the shoot's done, I seem to always forget to put things back. However, moving the end table wouldn't have been hard. I would have loved to make the stool a vital part of the shot (she was using it in earlier shots), but I had to include either the dining room (and chairs) behind her on the left or some the entertainment center on the the right. There was actually a very small window in which to shoot on a bare background.


Here's an edited version with the footstool gone (not my best post-processing, but it'll do):


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[Oren]

Looked at the other pictures on your flickr as well. Seems like you've got some cute neighbors dude - lucky you []

[Sean Setters]

They aren't bad... :-)

[Ifmracing]

Send 'em my way?


Ok, back to seriousness.
I also like the first one the best.
My problem with the second one is the shadow on the back wall, quite distracting to my eyes.

[Sean Setters]

To be honest, I don't usually pay as much attention to the lighting on my background. This time I was going to try something different. I snooted the flash for a while then discarded it in the later shots. In a perfect world, I would have used some type of glassware filled with water to diffuse the light and make an interesting pattern. However, this girl doesn't have a single glass in her apartment (only solid cups). I was too lazy to go up three flights to my place to get something that would work.


That left me with the tools I had with me--bare flash and a snoot. While the snoot did what it was supposed to do, the light wasn't placed very well on the wall in relation to the subject. When I noticed what it was doing, I took the snoot off. However, I still had trouble getting the entire wall lit up sufficiently (as you can see, the bottom part of the wall in the other chair shot is darker). I remember adjusting that flash at least half a dozen times during the shoot, but never quite got the coverage I was looking for (it was a small apartment, and I couldn't move the flash around too much...it was at its widest setting).