Penthouse Pet, Studio Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
I received a lot of e-mail requesting how to work with a ring-light and why would you use one. Shown below (image) is the right light I use and as you can see it’s got a large strobe light inside the front part of the product. The strobe is behind a plastic window which in my opinion is a good thing as its protected if you happen to knock it. Also, inside are some LED’s which you can switch on to use as a modeling lights which help's you to see your subject, and the LEDs have 3 different brightness. This will not affect the strobe light exposure as that has a lot more power than the LEDs. On the back, there is a power on button and also a way to control the amount of power by moving the ring dial around & as you do this it goes up and down in third stop incremental to adjustable the power. The total power output is 400ws. There is also a test button to make sure that the light is working. It has a big battery on the bottom which you charge up with a transformer. Having a battery makes this strobe portable so it’s a go any were light. On the side, you have a way to plug into the strobe to sink it with your camera, one is a PC cord input and one is a USB, there is also included a socket for a remote control. I like to use a PC cord which then connects to my camera by the hot shoe mount, sometimes...
Penthouse Pet, Studio Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
When investing in a custom made backdrop for a shoot it’s great if you can get to use it more then once. But you don’t want all your shots looking the same on that background if you have used it before on another shoot, unless you are doing pickups for a catalog and you need to have the images looking the same as the last time you shot on that backdrop. So here is a tip! "Keep notes or a diagram of your lighting setups". In these shots of sexy actress & Penthouse Pet® Tasha Reign I use the same backdrop I had use for a shoot with Playboy® Playmate Barbara Moore “The Circus Tent” I wanted to use another lighting technique with Tasha so I would not have them looking the same as my shoot with Barbara. Using a ring light and a soft box as my fill light it would give me a different look. I would use the same adjustment I had used for the string of lights that would hang down from the top of the backdrop as I did before with the use of a dimmer switch to adjust the output of light. The other change was the outfit on the model. I went with a body stocking and a top hat to help promote an attitude. The ring light was fixed onto my Canon 60D with a Canon 50mm STM lenes. ISO 200 and and my f stop was @ f8. 250sec. I was also able to get the exposure of the tungsten lights that were hanging down with no issue with...
Penthouse Pet, Studio Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
After I had shot the cover images I shot Seana against the white wall in a long latex dress with again reflecting the light back on her and the dress which also gave a nice sheen to the latex dress. We had to covered the dress with a liquid polish to shine it up to make it look reflective in some parts, this gave a great dimension to the shot. When shooting a new cover for Bizarre magazine I had asked Penthouse® Pet Seana Ryan to pose for the shots. She was one of the most amazing looking Pet’s that I had seen in Penthouse® magazine with a fabulous body and stunning face, super nice to work with and very professional. At the time of this shoot I had a wall built as backdrop in the back of my studio outside which was painted white with a scrim over the top to give me soft defused light even in bright sunlight and with the ad of reflectors, I could bounce the light back onto my subject to brighten the image (Model). I would also open up about ½ of a stop on the lens of the camera which would help give me more shadow detail. You could see a catch light from the reflectors in the eyes which is important, it will give the model life. In this space I could also just put up a backdrop of any color I had and as you can see in the cover shot we had a light blue...
Penthouse Pet, Studio Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
I believe that some of the simplest shots make the best impact. Why make it complicated! "Getting a Penthouse Pet Wet" - Story Behind the Picture When shooting a new assignment for Australian Penthouse® with another fabulous Penthouse® Pet Prinzzess Sahara I came up with a classic idea of getting a model wet and sexy having a fun time playing with water and a hose. I set up a backdrop outside on my balcony so the water would run down off the balcony down a drain not into my studio space. Also, because I was shooting outside I could use some of the natural light, as it would be used as open shade which would act as a very large fill light. The main light was a Paul Buff (Alien Bee) ring light which I could plug it into the main power and keep it powered up quickly as to catch the best reactions from the model. When you deal with anything with water it can happen very quickly so you need to be ready not only yourself but your equipment. Make sure that the water is running away from you and your gear as water and electricity do not mix. Safety is paramount. There is nothing more than a bad idea to have a model get wet with cold water as they will not react very well and you will see goose bumps on the skin. (Trust me on this one). Also, if it’s cold you have a very short time in which to shoot and who wants to be wet and cold. My trick here...
Penthouse Pet, Studio Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
Canon 50D - Tamron Zoom 28-75mm - F8.0 - 1/125sec ISO200 (All images were shot as Raw files) The Canon 50D is one of my backup cameras I believe the first thing to assist you in shooting an erotic set of images is start with a hot and sexy model, how about Emily Addison (Penthouse® Pet), next you have to come up with an idea of how it’s going to work as a striptease if you are shooting for a gallery of images. What would you like to see happen if you had the opportunity to watch and enjoy. It’s a fantasy come to life. . . Well it is for me! I had worked with Emily before on some other projects and thought it would be smashing to work with her again. So, I contacted her and set a date to shot. I booked a studio for us to use and when she got there we looked at the clothes we would use and discussed were in the studio we would shoot. I had some idea’s and one of which was with this leather chair. The backdrop I wanted to use was the garage door to the studio. You can see in the images it’s very industrial as it’s the back of the studio, not the pristine shooting area. Emily had this sexy fetish swim suit which I liked a lot so that was going to be the outfit for this vision. The images were also going to be for her website so there would be some stripping out of the outfit at the last part of the...
Penthouse Pet, Studio Photography, The Story Behind the Picture
I was reviewing some magazines on the fetish scene when I came across a copy of the US Bizarre magazine. It was nice but I could see they needed some help with there photography as there images were not very engaging and the way the magazine was designed looked sort of outdated. I discovered that they were publishing out of Garden Grove, California which was not to far away from me at that time, So I called the magazine and got an interview with the owner Jerry. I went over to see him with my art director & friend David Sparks. We walk into the offices of Bizarre magazine and the owner Jerry was in his office sitting down behind a large desk wearing a red dress and had a wig on plus was smoking a pipe. It was not out of the norm for me (Man in Drag) as in Shakespearean times men use to play the part of women and in pantomime the ugly sisters in Cinderella were all played by men, so this did not through me off my game. I told Jerry that I thought his magazine was great but he could do with some help in the design and that I could bring some new life to his photography with my creativity. I had been working with Versatile Fashions and Dita Von Teese. Plus, I was also a contributing photographer to Penthouse® magazine which had given me a lot of credibility. He just tossed the magazine at me and told me of the budget and said if I wanted I could go do...
