27th Jun 2007
high fashion with CTO
While I am here in the Riviera Maya this week sweating big time I want to reflect on the cold weather days…geeze, today its 95 and feels like nearly 100% humidity! ouch!
Often, we are left kept inside with our photographic duties due to outrageous weather conditions. It could be too hot and or too cold to snag a few photographic portraits outside. The off camera flash is your best friend if you need to be inside. I recommend that you program your mind to start thinking about accenting the image with a little added flash flavor. For this post, my friends Dave & Quin at DQ Studios were shooting in Canada and it was just -4F… that is just out of control cold…. Quin rocked out this high fashion image with a few tricks up her sleeve.
Quin writes:
On a cold winter wedding (-4 degrees F!), we had just finished taking a few shots outdoors and went inside to warm up. The high-fashion image below was taken in a cramped warming vestibule (20 bonus points for anyone who doesn’t have to look “vestibule” up) 
.
Here’s the how and why ….
My goal was to create a high-fashion image which accentuated the curves of our bride. I also wanted to somehow convey the coolness of the winter light flooding through the window. To cool down the outdoor light, we setup our QFlash with a full CTO gel applied. I set my camera’s white balance to tungsten to blue the sunlight streaming in the window. We positioned the flash to both rim-light the bride and fill the right side of the groom’s face and I posed the bride on the ledge of the window. I set my exposure to blow out the mess outdoors and captured the image above. I love how the shadow of the necklace adds another element of interest to this high-fashion image.
Technical Data:
Camera: Canon 20D
Lens: Canon 10-22mm at 20mm
Shutter: 1/80
Aperture: f6.3
Flash: Quantum QFlash T5d with full CTO gel (triggered via Pocketwizards)
Be blessed ….
q
Sweetness Quin, love that shot! Total Vogue! I’m diggin the slight accent on the groom in the background…NICE usage of gels! I’ve been having fun with this CTO as well! Cheers & looking forward to seeing some more amazing stuff from your video lights
Cheers!
matt
Very cool!
Love the glamorous Vogue look. Groom in the background with half blue light on his face makes this picture really pop. Just lighting the flower on his dark suit is the icing.
Lovely lighting, beautiful balance but shame about the bride’s pose . . . has she just pulled her back??? So much good work, spoiled.
Wow!!!…
Quinn, did you use the CTO to get the super blue of the photo with airplane in the background too?, Your images are amazing!, just different than any ordinary stuff… very dramatic… high contrasty … love them!!…
:)
I would agree that the pose is not “normal” and that the brides does look a tad ackward, but I think it works in this case very well. Maybe if her hand was facing forward instead of backwards… ? Sometimes in this business we have 20 seconds to make things happen and I really think the lighting overpowers the irregular pose. Maybe she’s being “sassy” cam
I keep scrolling down to stare at this photo, its just dang sexy. The guy in the background, as subtle as his presence is, totally seals the deal on this photo for me. Besides the fact that the bride is beautifully lit and the CTO gel adds nice flavor…
I’m curious, did you stick a light on the guy in the background? Or was it just ambient with a burning adjustment?
Thanks for participating!
Cheers,
matt
Hi guys! Sorry for the late reply, we’ve been out of the office a bunch and it’s been tough to keep up on the blogs!
Thanks for the comments. I really appreciate the feedback on this image. I knew in presenting it, the responses would be mixed. In regards to the posing, my approach was hopefully to achieve something “high fashion” in that I wanted take a pose that may appear to be awkward or unconventional, and create something beautiful from it. Obviously the reviews have been mixed, and it has given me more to think about for the future - thanks!
Sol, to answer your question about the gel, we used a 1/2 CTO gel for the airplane shot. For this image we used a full CTO gel.
Matt, we didn’t use a separate light for the guy. We took the diffusers off the Quantum to make the spread more directional, but angled it so the fall off would hit the groom as well.
Hope this all helps! Looking forward to seeing more incredible work on this blog!
HOLA Quin, great to see you here!
Again, I really keep coming back to this photo as I stroll through this blog… I really LIKE the pose. No mixed feelings here… I guess to each their own.
This screams bad A$$ to me. Unconventional, outside the box, sassy, sexy, hot… yep, you done good here!
cheers!
matt
[…] Posted by as Uncategorized My goal was to create a high-fashion image which accentuated the curves of our bride. I also wanted to somehow convey the coolness of the winter light flooding through the window. To cool down the outdoor light, we setup our QFlash with … article continues at matt brought to you by FASHION and Diet […]
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Verry verry cool picture. nice colours BIZAR