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M38A1
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I was invited to shoot the recent finals for Top Austin Model this past Thursday. My mentor Rick Kent with EnduroPhoto is connected with the event organizers, participants and other photographers, and he asked if I'd be interested in trying something new and different. After all, how hard can it be to photograph women walking/stopping then walking, right?
The event was held in a wonderful event center 'barn' with not so great lighting. Yet there was a light bank of LED's in the 'pit' that tossed wonderful light out in front of us in a fairly small area. Key to good lighting was going to be in the models hands walking to 'that sweet spot'. The events primary photographer Peter Tung was also wonderful to work with and gave me some pointers on how to shoot this type of event.
Since I knew they would be walking towards us, stopping/posing, then walking away I opted for a continuous focus mode. I went full manual with a shutter speed of 1/250th to stop the movement, and a fixed ISO1600 put me in the f/4.5 ballpark. With the 70-200mm, f/4.5 provided a reasonably fuzzy background at 200mm, but not so great at 70. I think the average focal length was in the 80-100 range depending on where they stopped. Auto WB too.
There were 10 finalists and they came out in two different outfits the first set, two different outfits the second set, then an intermission, the men's walk, and then a third set of two outfits. Shooting 'a lot' RAW files, I got it down to just under 300 of which less than 80 really made the cut. If you're interested in the full gallery, click HERE.
The following are some of my favorites. Remember, this was my first time shooting this type of venue, so please be gentle.
This was 'the pit' where the eight or ten photographers were located. And this was the models view of us with the blinding lights they had to walk in to. Nobody said modeling was easy....
Here's Brianna. She's the emcee, a judge and all around wonderful person.
A couple of the 'guy models' before the competition.
A prior year participant.
The following will be just random favorites....
This is Skyler. She won last year I think. She is also 6' bare feet and last summer rode her bicycle from Austin to Alaska for the Texas4000.
The guys again...
...and the winner:
Overall this was a fun experience. Location in "the pit" is critical, followed by lighting and then the level of post processing you want to toss at it. I hope to be invited back to do this again. The one part that struck me interesting was, you knew where they were going to walk/stop & turn. AND they did their poses by themselves so there was no 'directions' needed. That was a joy for me.
I'd love to hear your comments on this first adventure in this genre' for me.
.
The event was held in a wonderful event center 'barn' with not so great lighting. Yet there was a light bank of LED's in the 'pit' that tossed wonderful light out in front of us in a fairly small area. Key to good lighting was going to be in the models hands walking to 'that sweet spot'. The events primary photographer Peter Tung was also wonderful to work with and gave me some pointers on how to shoot this type of event.
Since I knew they would be walking towards us, stopping/posing, then walking away I opted for a continuous focus mode. I went full manual with a shutter speed of 1/250th to stop the movement, and a fixed ISO1600 put me in the f/4.5 ballpark. With the 70-200mm, f/4.5 provided a reasonably fuzzy background at 200mm, but not so great at 70. I think the average focal length was in the 80-100 range depending on where they stopped. Auto WB too.
There were 10 finalists and they came out in two different outfits the first set, two different outfits the second set, then an intermission, the men's walk, and then a third set of two outfits. Shooting 'a lot' RAW files, I got it down to just under 300 of which less than 80 really made the cut. If you're interested in the full gallery, click HERE.
The following are some of my favorites. Remember, this was my first time shooting this type of venue, so please be gentle.
This was 'the pit' where the eight or ten photographers were located. And this was the models view of us with the blinding lights they had to walk in to. Nobody said modeling was easy....
Here's Brianna. She's the emcee, a judge and all around wonderful person.
A couple of the 'guy models' before the competition.
A prior year participant.
The following will be just random favorites....
This is Skyler. She won last year I think. She is also 6' bare feet and last summer rode her bicycle from Austin to Alaska for the Texas4000.
The guys again...
...and the winner:
Overall this was a fun experience. Location in "the pit" is critical, followed by lighting and then the level of post processing you want to toss at it. I hope to be invited back to do this again. The one part that struck me interesting was, you knew where they were going to walk/stop & turn. AND they did their poses by themselves so there was no 'directions' needed. That was a joy for me.
I'd love to hear your comments on this first adventure in this genre' for me.
.
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