Modeling Shoot: Lighting Test with Jaime

The Shoot

My My friend Jaime Ladd coör­di­nates an "adven­tur­ous din­ers" group on a pop­u­lar social media plat­form; 1 of the group mem­bers, Waco Tomlinson, recently killed a wild boar and offered up some choice cuts to the other mem­bers to pre­pare indi­vid­ual dishes for a potluck lun­cheon. Jaime agreed to deliver a shoul­der to me so I could make red chili pozole, so I asked if she’d mind mod­el­ing for me as I con­tinue to work on my stu­dio light­ing technique.

For the shoot, I used a Paul C. Buff “Einstein” (model E640) stu­dio strobe and metered with a Sekonic L-308S Flashmate expo­sure meter. The light was posi­tioned as close to the model as pos­si­ble with­out encroach­ing the frame, and shot through a 43″ Westcott white umbrella. The strobe was set to a very low set­ting to achieve light falloff behind the sub­ject, leav­ing the black back­drop mostly in the dark.

We used what­ever props were at hand — a metal pitcher filled with col­or­ful cloth nap­kins, a brown ceramic jug, a vin­tage bour­bon bot­tle, a book — and just had fun with it. I hope you like the results.