written by Roxana Clares based on Elvis Suarez's (Photographer) notes
Although some of my pictures had in the past resulted in black and white, I must confess that I had never set out to do so. This session was unique to us because we were actually shooting for black and white. I wanted to capture an image that was edgy and modern; it was our goal to take risks and stay away from the comfort zone of "safe lighting." The idea was to add meaning and drama to the image by accentuating contrast ratios and dark shadows.
The beauty dish is a tool that has become very popular as of late and I had long wanted to experiment with. As we built our set-up around the dish, the primary goal was for the lighting to be contrasty without having to expose our model to unflattering harsh lights. To accomplish this we opted to diffuse the beauty dish but positioned it at a unusually extreme, high and profile angle instead of the standard 45o or frontal position. Building on this set-up, we added a subtle kicker by bouncing a soft box off a white wall to the right of the subject (camera left). We added a catch light (also known as an eye light) to bring attention to the subject’s eyes by pointing a Norman strobe with a snoot from near camera; the glint prevents the eyes from looking soul-less.
To distinguish the subject from the 12’ wide gray paper background we were using, we opted for the D700 and the Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 lens. Shooting on a long lens allowed us to compress the x-axis, and cover the entire frame with the background. Had we instead shot on a standard focal length such as a 50mm lens, the field of view (cone) would have expanded revealing the spaces not covered by the background. We set our aperture at f5.6 to arrive at, or around the sweet spot of the lens (every lens has an aperture range in which it looks the sharpest, usually in the middle apertures (f4 - f8). If we had shot on a faster prime (speed of a lens describes how open the aperture can be set), which I would have preferred, with a maximum aperture of f1.4, I might have opted to shoot at an f4 to decrease Depth of Field and further separate the subject from background.
What first attracted me to shoot with Jamzz (model), other than her obvious beauty, was her tall and lengthy figure and her apparent ability to project intensity through her facial expressions. It was important that the subject projected sensuality without needing to bare it all.
I feel makeup composition becomes extra challenging for the makeup artist when shooting black and white because of how increasingly delicate it becomes to make the shades stand out as opposed to colors. As if the task at hand weren't difficult enough, the subdue nature and high contrast of the lighting required that Iris Montoya, our makeup-artist, applied more makeup than usual. As always she was up for the challenge and managed to create a very bold look that accentuated the style without becoming distracting and over-the-top.
Wardrobe selection was based on textures and tones that would appear interesting, being that color wasn’t a factor. We are grateful to Jamzz, who having been extremely patient showed us through what we believe to have been the entire catalog of her closet.
Shot at GEARstudio Miami.
Shot at GEARstudio Miami.
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