I had met this lovely looking woman at a car wash and talked with her about modeling. She had been approached before but nothing became of it. I informed her of some of the models that I had worked with and knowing of some of the names of the model’s herself she decided to come see me at my studio to talk about a day to go and shoot some images. I had a client that was very interested in some new swimsuit shots for a calendar and so I set a day and time to shoot a sexy swimsuit shot of this fabulous new model.
We went down to the Newport Beach, CA pier to shoot early in the morning and the sun was coming from the Left of the image and in order for me to get some softer light we moved to the underside of the pier, the light under the pier is what we call open shade. I had a small silver reflector to add more reflected light on the model from the other side. Now the trick for exposure is open up your f stop by ½ a stop so you expose for the shadow detail. In doing this you might get a bit of a hard highlight on the body with the sun but I think it works. I found that the structure under the pier gave me very hard lines in my background which looked masculine that then gave the curve shapes of the model’s body more femininity. This is a quick way to get a super shot if you don’t use any strobes for fill or if the bright sunlight is not the light you want to shoot in. The swimsuit we use was also featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The model was the one that came up with the suit and think she looks fantastic in it.