Beach Photography

I’ve never been able to take pictures like the one above. I’ve always wanted to. Thankfully I had the opportunity to earlier this year. I think it was probably about 55-60 degrees and KT (my model for the day) was a real trooper. We scoped around for about 30 minutes until we found a secluded part that she and I both felt comfortable shooting in, we lugged the light, light stand, battery, cables and cords, chair, and camera to a pretty sweet spot where we could set the shot up. I don’t normally take photographs of women… let alone ones that aren’t completely clothed. I was nervous, and she was nervous, but when it was showtime she really shined. I think we knocked these out in 10 minutes or so. I probably took 25 frames and had exactly what I wanted.

*The Fun Stuff*

We used her Canon 5d markII. (I’ve just about always been a Nikon user, so needless to say there was a tiny learning curve) Set up her alienbee 800 with a sweet little beauty dish, set it to between 1/16 -1/8 power. She a 85 f/1.2 strapped on and I think we shot it pretty wide open if I can correctly recall. I’ll admit the color saturation on Canon is unlike that of Nikon, I’ll never bash a canon user again. If you have shot with artificial lights before you know that the camera will only sync up to 250th of a second. set the ISO low and fire away, the sun was in a perfect place too, just above the horizon, and diffused by this lattice fence. I couldn’t have asked for better conditions, let the bee add a tiny bit of fill light, and i was making my exposure dreams come true.

Check the rest of the set in the gallery

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Have a happy new year, and a picture worthy week.

Warm regards, Jon Stell