Before I start talking bout photography, I just wanna say this: Jeslyn, you’re one cool pro!

I found this photo when I was doing my archiving from one hard drive to another. This was an old photo which I took mid last year during one leisure outing with the Nikonian fellows. It was during this outing when I first met some good local photographers like Braendan Yong.

Jeslyn, with her high boots, braved the slippery rocks and slowly walked to the middle of  the waterfall. I was sick worried about her when she stepped foot into the water. I remembered I asked her when she was walking towards the rocks “Jeslyn, you sure?”.

Calmly, she answered with a sweet smile and said “Yes, I’m fine. it’s ok.”

Talk about PRO AT WORK!

I wanted to use a slower shutter speed so that the water would appear “misty”. But it was a bright sunny day and I didn’t have my neutral density (ND) filter.

So i gotta make do  with what I had in my hand i.e. a Nikon D700 and a Nikon Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR zoom lens. I tried to avoid taking the exposure reading from Jeslyn face as she has fair skin and with the water in the background, that might not be able to give me a correct reading.

Hence I took the reading from the grass next to the waterfall, recomposed my frame and ~C~L~I~C~K~ . I got this photo.

First of all, thanks to AC for the title.

See, Zephyr is not a model. She is just a shy girl next door with no experience posing infront of camera professionally.

When she asked me for an indoor shoot, i was scratching my head what to do with her petite frame. We agreed to do something sexy BUT not vulgar visually.

We started with some shots using the available light.

Then we started to introduce some lights into the picture.

I first introduced one Nikon SB800 Speedlight shot through a white umbrella.

(Nikon D700, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED lens, 1/200s @ f/8, Remote triggered Nikon Speedlight SB800 TTL –0.7EV, shot through white umbrella. Flash positioned on model’s right)

(Nikon D700, Nikon Nikkor 105mm f/2D AF-DC lens, 1/100s @ f/3.5, Remote triggered Nikon Speedlight SB800 TTL +1.0EV, shot through white umbrella. Flash positioned 45° on top of model)

(Nikon D700, Nikon Nikkor 105mm f/2D AF-DC lens, 1/2000s @ f/2.8, Remote triggered Nikon Speedlight SB900 TTL +2.0EV, Direct flash positioned at 45° on model’s top right)

Just a quick note to share few photos and their exif.

Natural Light (without reflector)

Exif: Nikon D700, Nikon Nikkor 105mm f/2D AF DC lens, ISO400, 1/320sec @ f/4.

Natural Light (with reflector)

Exif: Nikon D700, Nikon Nikkor 105mm f/2D AF DC lens, ISO400, 1/5000sec @ f/4. Reflector at Cindy’s right.

Flash

Exif: Nikon D700, Nikon Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR lens, ISO400, 1/800sec @ f/5.6, Nikon SB900 Speedlight (TTL EV+1.0 zoomed in at 200mm. Remote triggered)

Ring Flash

Exif: Nikon D700, Nikon Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR lens, ISO400, 1/250sec @ f/5.6, Nikon SB800 Speedlight attached to a ring flash adapter.

I was at my parents’ place when I took this photo.

My son, Zhen Xuen (Jadon), just woke up in my parent’s’ bed and I was playing with him. As usual, he gave me all sorts of expressions when he played.

The light was diffused through the window on his right. I told myself “This is an opportunity that I should not be missing!”

I went to my car and grabbed my camera bag which had a Fujifilm Finepix S5 Pro and 2 lenses. I mounted the 50mm f/1.8 on it and before I closed the car trunk, I took out the reflector.

I went back to the my parents’ room, stood on their precious bed (which later was scolded by mom. Yeah, I still get nagged and scolded occasionally every now and then). My left hand was holding the reflector to bounce some light onto ZX’s face, while my right hand was holding my Fujifilm, dialling in the correct aperture and shutter speed with one hand. Yeah, you can imagine the situation, both my hands were criss-crossing and it was messy…

What do you get when you have a formula which looks like this?

[(Charisma) x (Elegant)]² x [(Foxy) x (Beauty)]³ – Experience

Amy, a mother of one, always had doubt that she can pose in front of the camera and she was worried by her “non-experienced as a model”. As mentioned in my blog before, it took me ONE YEAR to convince her that she could do well in front of the camera.

You don’t need to have heavy makeup to enhance Amy’s beauty, and neither her beauty would be undermined by light makeup.

This is the kind of quality that Amy has.

We took this series in a room which has a HUGE floor window. That window gave us BEAUTIFUL diffused light… lots of it, in fact. All these three shots were done with the diffused light through the floor window on Amy’s right.

Throughout the shoot, she was a real pro.

So, what do you get when you have [(Charisma) x (Elegant)]² x [(Foxy) x (Beauty)]³ – Experience??

The answer is: Amy C

It was drizzling and the current at the nearby waterfall was furious.

We took a few shots in the cold waterfall and Nicole wanted to take a break from the cold water. Trust me, it was COLD… furthermore, Nicole was wearing a dress which was thin. We literally saw her shivering when she came out from the water, but she maintained her sweet smile and friendly attitude. Talk bout professionalism!

While we were taking a break in a nearby sheltered. We saw this beautiful greenery behind Nicole. We could make a beautiful frame from it.

However, it was 5:54pm and the sun behind Nicole created a strong backlight. Worst, we were in the shaded shelter, we didn’t have enough light to illuminate the scene. We thought of setting up one or two flash guns but we scrapped the idea coz we didn’t wanna waste the beautiful soft light from the sun as it gave Nicole a beautiful natural hair light.

We took out the gold reflector and placed it on Nicole’s right. It bounced the light source from the sun to Nicole’s face. And true enough, it created a soft hair light for Nicole… Lovely!