Sometimes You Have to Warm Them Up

Sometimes you have to warm these models up.

I'm not talking about me, generously sharing my body heat, or putting a space heater in front of them. (Although I often do--use a space heater, that is--and last night was somewhat chilly so a space heater was in operation.)

Unfortunately, it's easy to over-warm a model's skin... Again, I'm talking about color manipulations not the space heater, even though you can over-warm them with that thing as well.

Whether I over-warmed Hailey is up to each viewer's opinion. But trust me, this young lady was white. I'm talking snow white! As soon as I took the first few snaps, I realized she looked like a chick who hasn't spent a day in sunlight, much less an hour or two in a tanning salon, in her life. This would not do.

I was at my friend's studio and he was helping me out and assisting me. I asked if he had any gels I could use, Bastard Amber to be precise. (Yeah, I forgot to bring gels with me.)

"No," he said. "But I have this golden straw stuff or whatever it's called."

"Let's try it," I said.

My friend proceeded to put some of it on the front of my Mola beauty dish-- Not completely covering the dish, but enough to warm it fairly well. A couple of quick clicks and I realized Hailey looked way too yellow.

"Do you have any CTO?" I asked.

He did and, as he was pulling the golden straw gel off the dish, I said, "Whoa! Keep that on there and put the CTO on top of it."

He did and I kind of liked the results. Then, to warm the edge, we put some CTO over the flashtube in the strip box behind her and camera left. (BTW, this was 1/4 or 1/2 CTO, I don't remember which.) I had a small, silver-lined, umbrella working on the other side and behind her and I thought I'd leave that one without a gel to give it a harder, un-colored edge.

Like I said, You might think she's over-warmed but she sure as heck needed something to give some color to her skin.

Model is Hailey. Captured with Canon 5D w/85mm prime, ISO 100, f/5.6 @ 125th. I used my 33.5" Mola dish as my main with a piece of foamcore opposite it in the front for a touch of fill. Behind her, camera-left, was a medium Chimera Strip and on the other side a small umbrella.