Reflections

No, I'm not going to reflect on something like my life (or lack of one) or the current state of humanity in today's world. (Or lack of it.) Rather, I thought I'd blog a bit about capturing reflections in images.

The other day, I had a chance to shoot some images of a model in a room that provided for subtle reflections in its glass windows.

I haven't shot much of these sorts of images before and it was fun to play around with this effect. The model, Amy, hadn't done anything like this before--not the reflection thing, but modeling--and she was nervous, anxious, and self-conscious. Although I didn't have much time with Amy, I wanted to see what I could do.

The room was sort of an atrium-like hallway just inside the entryway of the home. Everything was white: the walls, the stone floor, and the giant, transluscent, skylight overhead. I sure wasn't going to need any soft fill as ambient in the room was so soft it almost looked hazy. Still, I put up a strobe with an umbrella to help give Amy a little punch.

Without adding artificial light, I was concerned Amy's skin-tones would almost become too soft and lose definition and detail. Even with the strobe, it seemed detail was lost due to the pervasive softness of the light in the room. You might not think light can be too soft and diffused, but i think it can, certainly for some uses. At least, that's what I discovered. In retrospect, I realize I used the wrong umbrella-- I absent-mindedly chose a large white umbrella. (What was I thinking? Like this room needed more white, reflected light!) I should have chosen a silver-lined umbrella to attempt some specular highlights working in the shots. Even a gold umbrella or reflector would have made more sense. Oh well! We all brain-fart. I know I do. Shoot and learn, right?

It was difficult choosing which aspect of this set to focus on: Relaxing Amy or conentrating more on the technical aspects of getting the reflections. I tried to split my focus between the two and, personally, I think it was something of a mistake. I should have chosen to work more with Amy's nervousness than the tech stuff. Why? Because, in my opinion, the pose, attitude, and expressions of the model will usually compensate for problems with the technical, photographic qualities of an image. It was like violating my own cardinal rules about the model coming first.

Credits: Model Amy, MUA Michelle, Assitant Reno, Canon 5D w/85mm prime, ISO 100, f/5.6 @ 125th.

Here's another shot of Amy, this one a bit more revealing. As you can see, Amy's not shy or modest, she was simply self-conscious in front of a camera. I should have worked harder at getting her to relax and be more expressive. That's most-often the key to capturing better images of inexperienced models. My bad.