Sean's Recent Shoot: Panos Galore

[Sean Setters]

EDIT: Go to the last page for the most recent shoot information.


I've photographed Sue before, but I wanted to give it another go at it. This time we met at her family's farm. The farm was located on a hilltop which provided something rare in my area--sweeping views for nearly 360 degrees. You see, in TN, you're usually closed in by tall vegetation or large hills/small mountains nearby. This location was perfect for grabbing shots with good views of the sky in nearly any direction. Unfortunately, its greatest strength also created a huge challenge--wind. There was nothing around to block the constant high winds at the location. In fact, one of my lightstands (fitted with a 60" Softlighter, affectionately called a "wind sail" in this instance) blew over while we were setting up even though it was weighted down with more than 30lbs of equipment.


When it was all said and done, we got some pretty good shots. I wish the wind hadn't been so bad so that we could have utilized the sweeping view of the location a bit more. Regardless, it was a good day. I got about 15 selects out of the session (shots that I really liked). It was difficult to narrow the selection down to just a few to post to Flickr. In the end, these are the shots I chose. Click on the pics to see individual descriptions, EXIF, or larger sizes.


These were posted to Flickr:





















These were other shots that I liked, but ultimately decided not to post (Note: Picasaweb is experiencing a bug where the picture disappears if you click on the link. They are working on a solution to the problem):


2nd EDIT: I removed the picasaweb hosted album, so the images I was referring to will not display (obviously).

[clemmb]

Nice job Sean. Usually when I am dealing with wind, which is most of the time, to put the subject in the best orientation fort he wind is the worst orientation for the sun. My subjects usually squint in the bright sun during a photo shoot like this.


I looked though your whole photostream on flicker this morning. I like looking through others galleries. I get a lot of good ideas that way.


Mark

[Sean Setters]

Nice job Sean. Usually when I am dealing with wind, which is most of the time, to put the subject in the best orientation fort he wind is the worst orientation for the sun. My subjects usually squint in the bright sun during a photo shoot like this.

You're quite right about that. In fact, for the best polarization effect, I should have been pointed in another direction. However, this view provided the best background/polarization compromise. After my lightstand blew over, I put two more sandbags on it and had an assistant holding the umbrella (it kept wanting to turn at the mono's pivot point where it connects to the lightstand no matter how much tension I applied to it). With everything in place, we were finally able to shoot without much interruption.


Note: I added the non-Flickr pics after your original post.

[clemmb]

Always helps to have a beautiful subject.


I like the last one. The pose looks natural.

[Steve U]

Nice work Sean, I like the last one as well and the third and fourth last ones.


It sounds as though you need and have created a good team with your assistant, to get shots like these.


Steve

[Sean Setters]

It sounds as though you need and have created a good team with your assistant, to get shots like these.


Steve

Oddly enough, I didn't have my usual assistant with me (Maher). Instead, Noelle tagged along this time. She was certainly a great help, and I hope she grows to enjoy aiding me and my ridiculous photography obsession....





Note: Looks like picasaweb is still having issues displaying images. Oh well...

[Steve U]

Let there be light and it was brought by our resident padre of strobism, nice shot Sean.

[Rocco]

Very cool. You should totally do it again next year when the leaves are just starting to change.

[Sean Setters]

Most of the "Christmas time" spent with my family was actually enjoyed before Christmas. Therefore, I was quite bored when Dec 25 rolled around and everything in town was closed (that is, except for Walgreens and the random gas station). As I had a couple of camo items lying around, I thought I'd try a military-style self-portrait. After trying a couple of different things, I ended up settling on a 14" Lumodi beauty dish boomed overhead. As I say on the Flickr caption, the lighting "...seemed to capture and convey the toughness of a soldier and the thread of darkness and regret that comes from having to make tough decisions with lasting consequences."

After posting the photo originally in color, I made a couple of changes in post. Generally speaking, I don't do drastic changes to a photo in post--but the ample free time I've had over the holidays allowed me to play around with the image more than usual. I ended up adding a texture to the background and changing it to black & white with a slight color tint.


Military Test Shot by budrowilson, on Flickr

I'm still not 100% sold on the texture, but I like how it gives the camo a bit of context (by letting it blend into something).

[bob williams]

Sean, I really like this shot and the way your lighting amplified the "intensity" in the face. If your interested in going further with this theme/technique, I have a couple of suggestions:

1. IMHO the beanie conveys more of a gangster message than a military one. Try and get your hands on a military ball cap with the same digital camo. I think it would add to the shot considerably.

2. I actually like what you did with the back ground, but if your looking for more blending with the subject, you may try a piece of digital camo netting normally available at your local military surplus or even a piece of realtree camo netting available at your local sporting goods store---both are fairly inexpensive for a 6x6 sample.

Regardless--cool shot.