Hi everybody!

I wrote in my last blog that the next few weeks I am going to try and photograph a different style of portrait every ’work’ day with the help of my two kids. I have the time, its whether they have the patience!

I purchased a Lastolite pop up black and white backdrop. It is brilliant! No longer do I have to carry 8 foot wide rolls of background paper up 6 flights of stairs because it doesn’t fit in the lift!

It arrived on March 12th just as the lockdown began but I was too busy organising my new website www.pictureit.ie to have a play with it.

Now though I have no excuse.

I am shooting with speed lites as I only have 3 by 4 metres of space to work in. So I placed one flash behind the model with a spill kill light and an ND filter attached. I have a snoot with a honeycomb attached above the camera. I wanted to see what light I could get from a source that is 3cm in diameter!

I am shooting on F1.2 which is an incredibly low depth of field and requires my subject to stay absolutely still, so in this image below Oisins eyebrows are in focus but his eyes are just a little soft.

*The eyebrows are sharp in focus but the eye is soft. The camera focussed on the hair in front of the eyes and not the eyes themselves.*

I got luckier in the next shot.

*The focus is sharp in the eyes in this image.*

Saoirse was sucking on frozen raspberries when she came in to have her photo taken so her lips and skin around them were covered in red juice. I got her to mess with her hair this is the result I got. It is a touch soft and if I was shooting this again, I would have my depth of field a lot bigger, (or a model that would stay still!) but this is what testing is all about, finding out what works and what doesn’t.

It’s a great look for a four year old to have!

The image is a tiny bit soft but it’s fun and mischievous and it works for those reasons.

The lighting was very simple with the snoot on a boom above the camera.

By the way, there is very little processing on these images, I just put them into Lightroom and press auto and that does the job for the moment!

Okay lets prep the next set up….