Shoot Breakdown - Xanetia Sunset Shoot
I generally only shoot over interstate con weekends, either at the event or side shoots at the hotel. Interstate location shoots are just too difficult given the logistics involved, in finding a location in a city I don't know well and the effort of getting around with my disability plus the con takes up most of the time and side shoots are squeezed in around the event usually in the evening. What I really want to do is more outdoor shoots with interesting backgrounds and beautiful ambient light.
Every year I plan to get out and shoot more in Adelaide but while I know hundreds of cosplayers interstate I know relatively few people in my hometown.
So the plan is to try and shoot most weekends. With the beautiful warm weather at the moment, I planned a couple of beach shoots. One of the benefits of Adelaide is the coastline directly faces the setting sun so you get uninterrupted golden light. I like to shoot at sunset because apart from the golden hour you don’t have to worry about cloud cover like you do earlier in the day and getting harsh overhead light from the sun and needing much more powerful strobes to combat it.
I've been trying to use different jetty's so they don't all look the same but the funny thing is most have identical railings and all look the same anyway but do have small differences, the main one is the seating design which is a major consideration. For this one, we chose Grange Jetty because the seats aren't indented or have handrails at the end. Like all beaches on a hot Australian weekend getting any sort of a park was near impossible let alone a disabled park near the jetty. Jetty’s are perfect in Adelaide because the lead to the horizon with the setting sun behind the model and create beautiful leading lines in the photo.
We started shooting around 7.15pm (with sunset at 8.34pm), the sun was just to the left of the jetty so shooting a pose at the railing was almost directly at the sun. I started off at 1/1000 (above left is the very first test frame) and slowly worked my way up to the Sony a7iii's max shutter speed of 1/8000.
With the sun so harsh it wasn't until we changed the angle that we finally achieved a better balance between ambient and flash. With this type of photography, the basic rule is Shutter Speed controls the background exposure and the flash power controls the model exposure and it's getting a nice balance of the two to get the perfect shot.
Below you can see a final processed image along with the purely ambient light and the out-of-camera frame with flash.
The other thing you'll notice between the final and the out-of-camera is the corrected horizon line. The majority of shots have been corrected to have the horizon square to the image. Human beings generally prefer straight, levelled lines instead of odd angles. When you hang a photo in your living room, why do you want to align it perfectly with the ceiling, floor, or furniture? And how off-putting is it when you see and crooked photo? We just find straight lines more aesthetically pleasing. That being said you'll see some of the images here that don't have straight lines, there are either deliberate choices or the images aren't going to be output and are here to show some other element.
I was shooting with a Godox AD300 with a gridded Godox 85CM AD-S85S Deep Parabolic Softbox. I meant to take off the grid but forgot, so I would have lost a lot of light. I didn't have a second helper so I didn't get any BTS material but the light was being handheld on a pole like the image below from a shoot a few weeks earlier.
7.30pm - We moved to the bench seat and did a few sitting poses with the light to the right of the camera and using the sun as a hair/rim light. I don't generally like visual clutter behind my subjects like groups of people too close. It's ok if they're a good distance away and are artistically blurred by the depth-of-field into nice shapes. We had a number of frames where Xanetia looked amazing, with the perfect wind in the hair but there was a large group of people crowding the scene however I like the shot on the right because she is haloed by the people, a light pole, and two beautifully placed birds.
7.43pm - We then tried a few shots without the shirt. In this shot leaning forward, I didn't correct the horizon to accentuate the lean.
I was shooting directly into the sun and was maxing the camera out at 1/8000. I don't believe I've gotten anywhere near that before. I could barely see a hazy silhouette in front of me with the sun in my face so I have no idea what the camera focused on, especially at f/2.
8.00pm - Half an hour before sunset the light was finally coming to us with the intensity noticeably dropping. It's around this time you get the best mix of ambient and flash.
I love the first image with the leading lines of the jetty and its railing shadows heading to the horizon. Again the second image has a non-corrected horizon to accentuate the lean....or I just forgot
8.12pm - The next few are probably my favourite shots of the shoot. We added the white shirt and got beautiful rim light from the sun on the legs. By this time with the rapidly falling ambient light, you are constantly scrolling Shutter speed and flash power to compensate.
8.26pm - A few minutes before sunset the wind started to pick up which was perfect. I always want a lot of hair movement, it adds so much to an image. You want to take lots of images because everyone will be different and give you a wide choice for the one you find most aesthetically pleasing.
In the first image, I really like the angle of the face but the 90-degree piece of hair just looks awkward.
8.30pm - As the sun hit the water we swapped sides to get it in frame. At this point, the wind really picked up so much that my assistant had an issue holding to light too high but it had a good effect on the hair and shirt.
8.33pm - We turned the flash off and just used the ambient light to get some beautiful silhouette shots to show off the hair in the wind.
Overview
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Location: Grange Jetty, South Australia
Date: Sunday 8th January 2023
Model: Xanetia
Assistant: Leighlan Doe
Shoot Time: 1.5 hours
Total Frames: 476
