Silhouetted beauty
I don’t often shoot using flash or any other kind of artificial light. I try to capture moments and use the available light to make sure the scene is undisturbed by me. Simply speaking, I don’t consider myself a studio photographer. But that does not mean I don’t want to explore all kinds of photography and let my creativity flow. This time I had an idea in my head of high-contrast silhouettes of a nearly anonymous model that would purely concentrate on shadows, curves, and texture. Luckily I knew the perfect woman who would be ideal for this shoot. I’ve known Katka for more than a decade now. We met in an ancient chatroom dedicated to the German phenomenon Rammstein. We’ve both been pretty avid fans ever since the nineties. Since then she’s been working professionally as a model for a few years. She’s currently working as a policewoman though as she has grown bored of the modeling career. But that does not mean she’s abandoned photography altogether. Thankfully she still enjoys being in front of the camera every now and then nowadays as more of a hobby. I hit the jackpot by telling her my vision for this shoot as she understood perfectly the kind of look I was looking for and most importantly had the experience to be able to deliver what I wanted from the model.
A simple stripbox. Nothing else.
The images in the gallery below with the exception of few shots were lit using a single 500-watt studio flash with either a simple stripbox or a rectangular softbox as a modifier. Turns out you honestly do not need much to be able to capture true beauty. ISO 125, f/8 aperture, 1/250s shutter speed and a perfect combination of a photographer and a model did wonders for me yesterday. I know it is far from the work I usually do and post here but I’ve said it before. I’m shooting for myself and to be creative. Getting out of my comfort zone is necessary. Otherwise, I’d just get tired of photography eventually. If you like the photographs, do let me know. It is always nice to chat.
P.S.: There was this one special shot I took when the flash did not fire for some unknown reason. The image came out nearly pitch black. I did, however, pull the exposure up as high as I could in Lightroom to still get an image out and I think it is my favourite of the bunch. It is incredibly grainy, lit only by the modelling lamp of the flash but the contrast, the lack of detail, and the massive amount of grain somehow reminds me of the work of the great Miloslav Stibor who shot beautiful high-contrast anonymous details of female bodies on film in nineteen sixties Czechoslovakia. Here’s the image:
