For day 3 of my 12 days I want to share some of the pictures I created when I spent a fabulous late Autumn afternoon in the woods with Becky & Nathan.
Becky is a super creative model, who absolutely loves to get creative on a shoot. Being in a concrete tunnel with her playing out the role of a scary clown is a formidable creative experience. She’s modelled for me on several workshops over the years and I had also done a shoot with Nathan in the summer as one of his first with another photographer, apart from Becky who is also a photographer too.
The exchange of messages on the shoot day was full of doom and talk of cancellation as the weather was just terrible with lots of wind dark skies and rain. My weather app was convinced that the weather would clear and sun would come out after 2pm on this November day. Sure enough the weather app was right, and we headed to the woods for a shoot knowing that the light would be disappearing with each press of the shutter.
- EF 135mm f/2L USM
- 1/250s, f/2.5, ISO 640
- EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM
- 1/160s, f/3.2, ISO 1000
So it turned out to be a time for the wide aperture primes to do their magic, and a little faith in the camera / lens IS, plus as much shutter speed as needed to keep Becky & Nathan sharp even when moving, typically at least 1/125s.
- EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM
- 1/160s, f/3.2, ISO 320
- EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM
- 1/160s, f/3.2, ISO 125
I was looking for pockets of sunlight that would appear through gaps in the trees.
- EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM
- 1/160s, f/3.5, ISO 640
- EF 135mm f/2L USM
- 1/160s, f/3.5, ISO 100
- EF 135mm f/2L USM
- 1/320s, f/3.2, ISO 320
Moving around the location we tried a more open spot, the light was still falling, but there was a little more of it to work with.
- EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM
- 1/60s, f/2, ISO 400
This shot is one of a few I captured with a combination of flash and ambient light. The ambient was running out and being back under the trees I used a little “light on a stick” to illuminate Becky & Nathan’s faces. This allows a lower shutter speed to get more of the ambient light in the background as the flash freezes the couple.
- EF 135mm f/2L USM
- 1/160s, f/2, ISO 1250
- EF 135mm f/2L USM
- 1/250s, f/2, ISO 2000
- EF 135mm f/2L USM
- 1/250s, f/2, ISO 2000
EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM and EF 135mm f/2L USM where the lenses of choice. Photographing outside is where the 135mm works brilliantly as there’s more room to move. I do wonder if the recently launched RF 135mm f/1.8L IS USM will be in my bag before the end of 2023?
A huge thanks to Becky and Nathan for asking me to capture these photos of them. We had a shoot that lasted all of an hour in constantly changing light and created photos that suited their requirements and I was happy to have captured them.
Day 3 of 12 done, see you tomorrow for some more photos.