Last weekend I turned my garden shed into a makeshift photo studio complete with 4 extension cords in a row, garden lights from Amazon, a $40 projector, and a number of other random shenanigans. Yuli used her kickass makeup skills to somehow make her face even more pretty and Jason joined the team eventually to hold the shed door halfway up so we didn’t die from the fumes generated by the propane heater.  I was super frustrated because my remote flash wasn’t working and I just couldn’t get my other lights in the spot that I wanted them. Yuli was a trooper with me cursing my equipment and we still managed to make some amazing art!

I mentioned a projector earlier.. I have seen all kinds of amazing photos taken of models with random patterns projected onto their bodies and I wanted to try it.  I don’t think my little projector is really powerful enough to handle it, unfortunately.  It also wouldn’t cycle through all of my photos for some reason.  It was, however, really fun to play with.  I’ll do some experiments on my own time and try to figure out why it wasn’t working.

After getting frustrated and giving up on the projector I moved on to fairy lights.  If you’ve not used fairy lights before, they’re tiny LED lights embedded into a tiny strand of hard wire. It’s like herding cats: you just kind of guide them in a direction and hope it works out. On the plus side, every shot is a surprise!  I feel like a few of these had an old Hollywood glamour look that was pretty neat.

After we tired of the fairy lights, I went back to my garden lighting.  I bolted one of them to my tripod (it’s just a 1/4-20 thread!) and set it behind Yuli’s head to backlight her hair.  I realize that I really love this effect and it worked awesome with the fur on her jacket!

At this point, Yuli informed me that she was freezing her cute little butt off. Time for a wardrobe change! (involving jeans and a jacket and somehow a fun hat!) I changed my backlight to white, but left it in place.

Overall I think we both had a good time and learned a lot! I can’t wait to go shooting again! 🙂