I’m leaving in two weeks to start preliminary fieldwork in Panama and am super excited. It’s getting cold here in Montreal anyway. Today I have a mini photoshoot with my girlfriend Claudia to show you!
Claudia is a cute little romanian girl that likes flowers and is obsessed with cats. I also share that obsession slightly. We regularly talk to our neighbour’s cats. We even give them names. There’s Brown Cat, Gray Cat, Dirty Cat, Curious Cat and more. We’re very creative with names. Brown Cat came in the apartment today. Claudia doesn’t think he’s very brown but trust me, he’s brown.
Claudia being cute. Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/160, f/2.0.
The setup was extremely simple. Although it’s my dream to get a studio, for headshots or tight portraits, all you really need is a few clean walls, and maybe a window. All shots were literally taken in a 2m squared corner of a room. You don’t need much more than that. For lighting, we had a window with a white diffusion layer.
Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/100, f/2.0.
In the two portraits above, Claudia is sitting at the exact same spot. Same exact settings. I just moved to her right and it changes the mood of the picture right away. In the backlit shot, I just placed a reflector to light her, positioned close, right outside the frame. All of these next photographs were taken just 1m away on a bed, still using natural light.
Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/80, f/2.0.
Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/80, f/2.0.
Nikon D7000 + 50mm 1.4, 1/50, f/2.0.
So you see? All you need is a little corner of a room and it can make reasonable backgrounds for portraits. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a white wall somewhere in your apartment. If you’re even more lucky, you’ll have a lot of space in front of the wall. By controlling the distance between the subject and the background, and just lighting your subject, you can get your background anywhere from white to black. Even throw in gels if you want. Of course in the end if I had a studio with a cyclorama wall, 12-foot ceiling and huge north-facing windows I’d take it. So if anyone has one of those just lying around up for grabs just send it my way thank you.
I’m buying a D700 tomorrow. Super excited. At this point I’ve been waiting for a year and a half, browsing Kijiji and Craigslist like a madman. A few months ago, they were going for over 2000$ for used ones, I almost went for it. Then I delayed my camera cravings just in time for the D600 release which shot the prices down. I’m getting one tomorrow for 1300$. Used from a Montreal photographer who is switching entirely to Fuji cameras. So why the old D700 and not the new shiny D600? I’m saving 1000$, I already have video on my D7000 and I don’t need 24MP (and my almost full hard drives certainly don’t want 24MP pictures). I’ve been waiting for full frame for a while now. I slowly eliminated all my crop-sensor lenses and now have all full-frame lenses. What I’m most excited about is the even shallower depth of field I’ll be able to get (okay okay, if you want to get technical it’s the same, but because of the wider frame there’s the impression of a shallower depth of field).
So I will definitely report back soon. We’ll see if knocking off a 0 in my camera improves anything!