Down On The Farm

Please Pardon the Interruption

We interrupt the recent overflow of guitar-wielding guys with flailing hair jumping around on stage to bring you something completely different.  Some girly stuff.  Portraits of the lovely Briann, fresh off the CF card.

My friends own this huge, picturesque farm outside the city and they were kind enough to allow me and my friend Briann to make some photos there. It’s the kind of place with limitless photographic possibilities; a place that turns my skull into a beehive as all the ideas buzz about. There are so many great spots, but when we learned that there is a log cabin dating from the 1800′s on the property we headed straight for it.

As I schlepped the gear up the soggy slope to the cabin, Briann looked around inside. When I finished toting everything up the hill, she summoned me inside and said, “what’s that sound?”. I listened and heard a grinding, hissing sound emanating form the partially caved-in ceiling. It stopped. Then I heard it again, and this time the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “That’s one pissed-off possum”, I said. She wasn’t fazed, but having seen how nasty these things can get I told her that we’d be starting our shoot outside the cabin.

Corey Woodruff, Natural Light Photographer.  Wait, what?

Call me a conclusion-hopping jerkface, but whenever I see someone bill themselves as working exclusively with natural light I read: “I have no idea how flashes work”.  Many times I look at their work and am very impressed, but a lot of the time I think to myself, “meh, it’d be a nicer photo with some fill flash or a hair light”.

But as we moved outside the cabin and I surveyed the area I noticed the sun peeking through the trees, bathing the area in a beautiful light.  Now I’m the first to admit that I am definitely not known as a “natural light” photographer.  Hell, I tend to use more strobes than a discotheque in many of my photos.  But I know nice light when I see it, so I quickly posed Briann and made a couple photos.

This shot is the third shutter click of the day.  The first reminded me to reset my ISO from the shots I’d done the night before and the second convinced me to switch to spot metering.

Bouncing Back

Now as much as I like the moody quality of the photo above, I thought it wise to make some photos where you could actually see young Briann’s pretty face.

Since I was still reveling in my new found ability to make a photo without triggering a photon explosion, I left the flashes in my bag for a bit longer and broke out a 22″ collapsible reflector.  These things are so cheap, useful and portable that there’s no excuse not to have one in your camera bag.

The one I had with me was a basic two-sided version with gold and silver surfaces, but I highly recommend the 5-in-1 versions that have a removable/reversible cover that give you white, silver, black and gold surfaces as well as a translucent disc that makes a great diffuser.

In any case, I wanted some light on Briann’s face, so I propped the reflector against a nearby tree to reflect some of the sunlight back into her face.  It’s a pretty obvious difference and a completely different vibe when compared to the photo above.  I could have gotten a similar effect with a flash too.

And… We’re Back

The flashes came out soon, enough though.  Once we started shooting in the cabin they were pretty much required.  All of the cabin shots you see here used two flashes.  Forever the optimist, I started with just one.

I knew I wanted to light Briann with a softbox so that I could control the direction of the light.  I positioned the box almost parallel to the side of the cabin so that the light was flowing across her, not blasting directly at her.  This gave a little more texture to the weathered exterior of the cabin and created some shadows around Briann.

Unfortunately, this made the interior of the cabin go pitch black in the photos, so I reluctantly broke out the second flash.  The idea was to illuminate the room and provide some highlights on Briann’s right side, not so that you can see the room but to separate her from the background.

Without this second light, her lovely dark hair that she spent time styling is essentially invisible because it blends into the dark room behind her.  Not a good look.  And if she doesn’t look good, I’m not doing my job.

Incidentally, the interior light had an orange gel on it (so it looks like warm tungsten light) and was aimed at the gold reflector I used earlier, which was lying on the floor.  This bounced the light around the room a little more than if I’d just stuck it on a stand in the middle of the room.

I’m taking on more and more portrait sessions and thoroughly enjoying it, so if you need some creative shots of the family, kids, graduates, pets or even headshots for your professional use get in touch. (314) 910-3244 or corey (at) coreywoodruff.com