Chinese Model In Creative Rainforest Lighting
More photos from the exotic, lush and quite accessible Pali tropical rainforest just outside Honolulu, Hawaii where I always find something new or unexpected. The model once again is my muse the Chinese-American beauty Sylvia.
There is no shortage when it comes to fantastic locations and opportunities in a tropical rainforest setting. Not only the textures, shapes and colors offer endless variety of setups but the lighting as well.
The safest and most pleasing results come if the model is in the shade or if the sky is overcast providing soft diffused light like a studio soft box would. But when the sun is out one must be careful about unpleasant shadows on the face or blown out highlights where the sun touches the skin.
All this can be used for our benefit of course when “tamed” and used for the appropriate theme.
I noticed some dried out tree branches that I though might provide interesting shadow patterns. They were giving me a spooky vibe.
Fortunately it worked out even better than how I visualized it: the effect of the shadows on the model’s face adds mystery, tension, drama and danger to the photos.
Minimal direction was given to the model, her personality, current mood, the atmosphere and the location naturally took care of the emotion of the photo. Also Sylvia and I have great model – photographer trust and we can have fun exploring a wide variety of themes and have fun with them.
Another variation of the wicked shadows theme; there are endless possibilities of course, the shadow pattern and the whole photo changes just by moving the model’s head a fraction of an inch.
I took about a dozen or so photos immediately deleting the less successful ones in camera and selecting the best ones later using the computer screen.
To show the versatility of this great jungle location just a few steps away and a few minutes later a completely different light was found and produced a totally different style photo:
LOve the shadows that cast on her face those are fun to do!