Great 2 part video series about what’s in professional fashion photographer’s bag. This pro in particular is the well known Katy Winn of Getty Images.

I did my first studio shoot yesterday with the help of Craig as my model and Phil graciously letting me snarf some time in his studio last night. Instead of using Phil’s lighting equipment, I brought my own along since that is what I’ll be using as I dive into glamour/fashion photography more. My lighting setup consisted of 2 manfrotto stands, 2 shoot through umbrellas, 2 flashes (Canon 430EX and a Vivitar 285HV).

Not only was this my first time shooting in a “real” studio, but also the first time I’ve had to give model direction and have that model sitting around waiting for me to setup a shot. Thankfully this was just Craig, and I didn’t mind having him sit around while I experimented (which was the whole point of the night anyways). I consider this payback for me cheering him on the sidelines of his last half-ironman at Lake Stevens.

Photographing a male model was funny to me because I found it difficult to get creative poses without it screaming like an ad for Tiger Beat Magazine. Here are some of the photos:

Rest of the pictures are on Flickr. I only managed to sort through 7 of the photos since I got home so late last night off the shoot. As I sort through the remaining photos, I’ll be adding them to Flickr so check back there in a few days for more Craig-goodness.

After going through this, I can definitely see the value in having (a) great equipment and (b) having an assistant. It would have made it so much simpler to have someone with me how could have adjusted the angle and height of the umbrellas instead of having to put my camera down, adjust the lighting and re-setup the shot.

I’ve been super happy with most of the equipment I have so far, except for a few things:

1. The cheap “Cactus v2″ radio triggers are driving me insane. They misfire or don’t fire at all about 10% of the time. While that doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, it drove me insane to potentially lose a great shot. However, I’m not yet ready to spent the money on the pricier (and infinitely more reliable) Pocket Wizards.
2. I need a vertical battery grip for my camera in a bad way. Composing portrait shot after portrait shot with my 70-200/2.8 was insane to try to balance in my hand and forced to take multiple shots due to hand shake.

Phil uses continuous light sources in addition to flashes, which gives him a lot of ambient light. Since he has a fixed studio location this makes a lot of sense since he isn’t carrying his gear around like I am.

I was only using my strobes to light the studio area, so the ambient light was really low when composing the shot, so my camera had some trouble focusing at times. This forced me to have to manual focus more times than I would have liked. I may have to give in and using his continuous lighting just to get more ambient light to make it easier on my auto-focus.

Btw, for those who want to buy me a random gift out of the kindness of their hearts, consider this on my wish list

1. Canon BG-E2 Vertical Battery Grip
2. Sterlingtek Canon BP-511 knock-off battery (why pay 7 times the price for the Canon branded one?)
3. Vivitar 285HV (a third strobe would really help give me some flexbility in backlight situations)
4. Four Pocket Wizards (I need one for each of my strobes )

Thanks again to Craig for being such a patient experimental model for me and Phil for providing the crucial studio space for me. You guys both rock!