Kristin Introduction

Kristin is a new (to me) model from a town on the coast, about 100 miles away. She often comes through town for a little modeling & a little visiting.

I should mention that over the past several sittings, over the past year or so, I've become more & more dependent on my digital camera. I like it for the following reasons:

It is absolutely terrific to use the digital camera to check exposure. When working with strobes, what you see is not what you get, because the strobe light will overpower ambient light.
I like using the pivoting, twisting LCD screen to obtain unusual angles, especially when using the wide angle setting of the digital camera's zoom lens.
Immediate gratification! Also, you can show the model what the image looks like, so she can make well informed adjustments.
Over the past several months, I've got to admit that I've been liking the color images more & more.
Creating digital images is a whole lot less work that developing film, making prints, and scanning them.

For those purists out there, I've got to say that I still prefer film & paper, for its superior quality. However, here on this web site, you are not looking at prints hanging on the wall, you are looking at digital images -- some started life on film & others were born digital. So, for web site viewing, there is no difference in the end quality.

I start this set of web pages talking about the digital camera because it is starting to fail -- specifically, it is unreliable when it comes to firing off the strobes. It works wonderfully well in other circumstances. The camera is the Canon Powershot G5, and Canon does not support using this camera to fire off strobes using a PC Sync connection. I had been using a Wein Safe-Sync Hot Shoe Mounted High Voltage Sync Regulator. Initially, that worked well, but lately it just started to fail. I used to have to fiddle with it, twisting the wire connection, sliding it off & on the hot shoe connection, etc, and that got it working, but here, when we were just getting started, nothing worked.

I find it incredibly distracting when my equipment fails to perform as expected. Look! Here we have a lovely young woman removing her clothing for us, and all we can talk about is how the digital camera fails to fire off the strobe!!! See? Distracting!

Okay, let's focus. First the obvious: Kristin has large breasts on a slight, lithe figure. To be honest, I don't have much experience working with models with large breasts, but it is a challenge that I'm happy to welcome.

However, Kristin's real strength as a model is not her evident attributes -- it's how gracefully she moves & poses. Throughout this sitting, look at her poses, at how well she presents herself. She is very easy to photograph.

The digital camera works intermittently. After Kristin removes her clothing, we try it again, and snap this image. I love her hand gesture.

Gestures are very important in photographing people, and hands are the second most expressive part of a person's body. Pay attention to them when photographing people, whether they are clothed or not.

With a digital exposure under our belts, we can look at the lighting and make adjustments. I like how there is a contour to the shadow on the right side of the image. Rather than throw another light on the left side of Kristin's figure, I decide to throw the off-light into the shadow on the wall.

That leads us to our next set up.

Kristin has a unique & interesting look, and I love the way she poses. This promises to be a good sitting. But I hate to admit that the unreliability of the digital camera has been distracting initially. I learned something -- I've learned that I rely on the digital camera to "proof" and adjust my lighting. So, now that the digital camera is working, I make some adjustments for the next set up.

This sitting continues with Unadorned Wall.