So I bought a white seamless backdrop. For anyone reading this who’s not a photo nerd and doesn’t know what that is, it’s just a studio backdrop that’s made of a thick paper. It requires a bit more care than a fabric backdrop back but has virtually no wrinkles, creases, or SEAMS! Just makes studio shooting a lot easier. Needless to say I was stoked to add this to my inventory and start involving it in my shooting.
I called up my friend Lisbet (in photos) to get the ball rolling on a shoot. She’s a good friend of mine so it was good to have someone who I could just BS with throughout the shoot and focus my energy on my lighting techniques. I didn’t have to worry so much about keeping the mood light or directing her, chemistry was easy. Plus we were going to be shooting in my apartment so it would’ve been suuuper weird to ask a model I didn’t know to get involved with this shoot. Ya know, “Hey I’m a photographer so come to my apartment alone” kind of dialogue implies possible horror stories for models.
The biggest obstacle of the whole shoot was just space. Being in my studio apartment in St. Pete, we didn’t have a lot of room for the giant backdrop, my 7-foot soft box, and breathing room for Lisbet and myself. You can kinda see what we were working with in this photo here.
All of that being said, I AM PUMPED with how these turned out. I got to really play with light in ways I’ve been telling myself I should be for a long time. Felt good to finally just make this happen and I plan on continuing to do so even if it means I have to keep shooting in my 400 square foot apartment with my beautiful friends.
-Tyler
