Emily and Kas - Steemit photo challenge #11 Entry - Original Work

These images are actually part of a larger set that I will be posting soon, but I thought that they fit in well with the latest Steemit Photo Challenge so here are my submissions!

Emily is one half of the band Little Crow in Vancouver Canada and has an incredible look. I really love working with her and her fiance Kas, they are incredibly talented people and as you can see very easy to photograph.

Entry #1 - Emily

For this photo I had Emily in an open field on a bright clear day, the sun is the main light source in the image and is directly behind her and relatively high, about two and a half hours before sunset. To get decent exposure on her face I used a 32" round white reflector to bounce the sunlight back. I didn't have an assistant for this shoot so I held the reflector in my left hand about waist/chest level and at a bit of an upwards angle till it looked good, then took the photo holding the camera in my right hand. The bright high sunlight directly on axis with the lens is what causes the weird faded flare going across her chest, but I think it actually adds to the feel of the photo so I didn't attempt to edit it out. The photo was taken with a Nikon D750 digital SLR and Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens. Shutter speed was 1/1600 and aperture was wide open @f1.8 Black and white conversion and toning was done in Lightroom with further adjustments in Photoshop to contour facial features and bring out the eyes a bit more (though they are naturally stunningly bright) as well as fixing some minor skin blemishes. I actually tried to accentuate her freckles as much as I could, I think she looks great with them.

Entry #2 - Emily and Kas

This image was taken in the same field but just in a different spot about a 45 degree turn to the right. For this shot I had both Emily and Kas with his guitar standing in front of an old abandoned house. The shot was taken at about the same time as the sun was getting lower in the sky, but I also lit this shot using an alienbees B800 flash with a 64" parabolic softlighter attached. I tried to balance the sunlight coming in from the left with my B800 on the right to give them that shiny, 3D look. This image was shot with a Nikon D3S digital SLR and Nikkor 58mm f1.4 lens. Shutter speed was 1/250 and aperture was @f1.8. I also used a .8 ND filter to keep the sunlight at a manageable level and the off camera light was triggered with Paul C Buff Cyber Sync triggers. Initial black and white conversion was done in Lightroom with further adjustments in Photoshop. Dodging and burning to highlight the guitar and faces, as well as selective filters to adjust the background brightness.

Hope you enjoy the post and good luck to all the entrants! As always if you like the post feel free to throw me an up vote, you know I always appreciate them. And be sure to follow me @dexter-k on Steemit to see new original content all the time.

Dexter