How did I create these fabulous glamour images of Actor/Model Theresa San-Nicolas who is featured in this black dress with plunging neckline!
A lot of photographers like to get new gear to test out and see if any of it can assist to give the look we are going for at the time. I acquired a 35in/89cm Deep Parabolic Umbrella Soft box to see if it would control my light for a glamour look, I was shooting. This Parabolic umbrella, as you can see in the set-up image is a large light modifier and the part that makes it different from another umbrella is that the umbrella is narrow and the light is placed deep into the bottom of the dish this helps to make the light more direct to the subject. If it was a true parabolic you could move the strobe further inside the umbrella or out to the edge and that would help focus the light very much like a Fresnel light. With this modifier umbrella it has the strobe set at the bottom and will not move, the only thing you can do is use more or less diffusion to change the lighting effect to make it hard or soft. Or just move the light to the subject or away from your subject!
We had our glamour lighting set up in the garage at the location so there was plenty of space for the shoot, I was able to put my backdrop a good distant away from the model and my main light which helped the black backdrop to stay dark. The black paper was giving a bit of a shine from some overhead lights (in the garage) that we could not switch off so I used a black drop cloth to help cover shine. Under the model in front of her was a silver reflector to bounce light back up onto the subject to help soften some shadows on the face from the main light. I wanted to have a dramatic look but not to hard of a light that is why I used a silver card acted as a fill light by the reflecting off the main light.
I use my Canon® 6D with a Tamron® lens 70-200mm with ISO 100. F8. 125sec. Lens was set at 75mm for the framing I was looking for. After the shoot I looked at all the images and came up with these posted here which I use Photoshop® (Filter) to resampled them into a fabulous Black & White look.
