In February of 2022 I moved into my studio in West Olympia and was very excited to get some new work done. After shooting mostly outside and getting used to off-cam flash and its many variations in settings, placement and environmental factors, I was ready to move those skills into the studio.

I won’t get into the details of the differences between on-location or “outside” flash photography and studio photography, but just know they are very different. The difference is comparible to shooting digital versus shooting film.

Speaking of film…

As you may (or may not) have noticed, the hero shot of this little blurb is a film shot!

So let’s get into the details of this shoot.

The model pictured is Haylie. (She’s on my Instagram - you can find her there.) I had been a follower of hers for a bit and after liking pictures etc, we scheduled March 19, 2023 as our shoot date. (Thank you metadata.)

Although I had been doing some experimental digital shots using colored LED panels on other shoots in the studio, I had learned the importance of light intensity and how it effects quality of the image. So I decided to start using color gels over my 400w studio strobes. I was already using gels on my Godox AD200s, so I knew the quality was only going to get better - as long as I was able to control that type of power and possible light spillage.

I added film to the shoot since I was working with intensely colored light. Since I shoot at ISO 100 normally, 400 speed film was going to be easy to work with. And film is special. It always looks good.

After a few warmup shots with a single gel’d light, I switched on the second light, added grids to each and recolored the lights to red and yellow. The grids allowed me to point the light where I needed with no light spillage between subject and background. I also had Haylie a bit away from the backdrop to maintain color seperation.

For a brief amount of time, I had my own studio space to shoot and create in. It was wonderful while it lasted, and I while I don’t currently have the luxury of such a space at the moment, I thought I’d share some shots and thoughts on a very inspirational shoot from this time.

Nikon F100, 1/125, F8, Kodak Ultra Max 400

Let’s first back up and say that the feathers are amazing. When Haylie showed it to me as one of the options she brought to shoot in, I was like, “yes…THAT.” Another outfit was used (I’ll show in a bit) but we mostly shot the feathered look.

Back to the shoot. After red and gold, I switched us over to high-key to see how the dark feel of her outfit would look against a clinical white. I was not sad at what I saw.

Sometimes when shooting rapidly with multiple strobes, one of the strobes will fail to fire. When that happens, that particular frame usually goes one of two ways: garbage or good AND even leads to other ideas sometimes. Ideas from accidents! Here’s an example of a shot that came out just fine even though a light failed to fire. These were shot within a fraction of a second from each other.

As you can see, the background light failed to fire. I really like how identical they are but with 2 different looks to the lighting. The gradient created on the background from the single source of light really made it come out nice even if it wasn’t the original intent.

For the final color combo used with this outfit, I chose red and blue. As opposites on the color wheel, I figured they would at least look interesting together. Here are a few of the digital shots captured with these colors:

Here, you can see the intensity of light I used for the round of red and blue digital shots. As with 99% of my studio work, this was shot at F8, 1/125, ISO 100. I previously forgot to mention, digital shots were captured with a Nikon 28-70mm F2.8D.

Here are some select edits with the above settings used.

Now it was time to switch over to film. When it comes to shooting film, I always make sure I do everything I can to not end up with frames I can’t use. Having a digital camera makes this pretty easy, considering I don’t use any external meters like a Sekonic or anything like that.

My process for this is simple. Nail it in-frame digitally, and then transfer the same settings to film camera. Tweak stops based on film’s ISO and push/pull preference.

Here you can see where I test what the difference between an ISO of 100 and 400 digitally before shooting on film.

Note: At this point I added a third light in white (not gel’d or anything) next to the blue key light to lighten the blue a bit. I was going for anything lighter than an intense blueberry at this point. If you look at the feathers on the second shot, you can see more detail since that 3rd light was implemented. It also turned the red background into more of a peachy pink color.

So after loading up 24 frames of Kodak Ultra Max 400 35mm film into my Nikon F100, I dialed in 1/125, F8. Since color film likes to be overexposed slightly, 400 speed on film was going to give me +2 stops of light more, making the film happy.

And if the digital shot taken at ISO 400 was any indicator of how well the film shots would come out, I was sure not to be disappointed.

I wasn’t.

the film shots:

I thought it was funny how I ended up doing another frame where a light failed to fire - but on film this time. Another unintentional shot that wasn’t lost. I sure felt lucky. Like getting 25 frames out of a 24 frame roll as I did with this one! I wish I could say it never happens, but it does.

After wrapping up the Kodak shots, I turned back to digital and the last outfit of the shoot. Lighting was changed to 2 strobes: one red and one white, both with grids in the reflector dishes. I pointed the red at the backdrop at about a 20 to 30 degree angle and let the light roll off seamlessly at the bottom, rounded part of the backdrop.

Quick inside info: After shooting the red and blue, I was almost sure we couldn’t top it. HAD we reached our creative climax for this shoot? Thankfully, the answer was no. We were still on it.

I pointed the white key light at Haylie, worked some angles and compositions and took these to wrap up our session:

Out of all my shoots, this was by far one of my most favorites for a very specific reason.

Up to that point, my perspective on photography was limited to the photography itself. My goal was to always nail the shot; to ensure that the technical, artistic and creative quality was as high as I was capable of. Once the shot was done, it was done. Sure, there’s all the post-production editing: blemishes and distractions, color grading, cropping (rarely), etc. But that was it. I could then share it, get some likes, a few followers, and move on.

But after developing the film and scanning them into the PC and converting the negatives, I saw shots that were beyond just photographs. For the first time, I was looking at essentially what qualified as a portrait, but the identity of the subject was not the main focus. It was all of the interest brought into the shot outside of the model’s identity that made them more different than anything I had ever shot before. The shapes, the compositions, the expressions, the colors, the grain, the details, everything. It all showed me that it was possible to create something, even with someone else as the subject, and turn it into something that someone would want to look at for longer than a few seconds - or even hang on a wall, since identity no longer matters.

This shoot made me look at even my older shots differently. They were no longer “dead”; exiled to the “completed” pile. It was now about what those shots could turn INTO.

They led me to creating with photos themselves as collages and eventually into painting. But that’s for another post.

Big thank you to Haylie for modeling and making these shots possible. She’s absolutely one of the best.