Modern Lighting Portraiture

I was so excited when my fried Alex Yang told me that October outing’s location will be set to Prai Rail way station! Woo hoo!!!! Finally can make it to that place!!! Before that, the outing invited by John was changing the location from Prai Railway station back to Penang heritage side. This time, we are not gonna miss out again…

This is not a new discovered place but already become famous for the Penang photographers to have photo sessions there…I was put that place in my wish list for photographing long time ago, but have no chance to make it. So this time I even wake up early to meet the outing schedule, but still, the schedule also delayed as usual to get everybody meet up at Jelutong Oldtown for breakfast.

There was a little incident happened as the original invited models were not able to make it to the session as 1 of them was falling sick and the other 1 was not joining too…luckily Alex able to invite the model that he met since the Mean Machines 2010 at Auto city, Deanne, as she was 1 of the contesters of Miss MM 2010. By the way, we also have our secrete weapon ~ Wendy, as she is good quite photogenic and became our model for this outing (FYI, she is our female photographer).

After about 20 minutes driving journey across the Penang Bridge to another “small Penang Bridge”, the railway station is just at below the bridge, there is the place where the train being service and repaired. The place looks dark, the windows and the 2 exists are the light source, the overall place looks quite “emo” and the tone is way to dark tone and mono…for some one will say that this looks dirty, but for me, it is gorgeous!!! The overall background was a great challenge for photo shooting, this is a great chance to learn and try more on the indoor lighting, not like the studio, but the environment quite suitable to bring out the contrast of the subject, the field of depth and the feel of the modern high fashion, that’s why I said “gorgeous”!!!

When we reached there, there had another group of photographers are having portraiture shooting with a model, after the model dress up nicely, we started to separate on to 2 sides where some were following Deanne and the others were following Wendy. I got start with Deanne and at first I tried to use the available light source of the place and try to see what kind of setting I able to done with hand held. There is some places where the light was illustrated from the broken roof to create the “spot” light from top, the light was soft and pretty nice for the Low Key lighting with spot metering to created stunning filed of depth…another nice place where I can pose Deanne with some absolute gorgeous is using the back lighting for some open end and she can easily understand and full-fill the pose as what we required, quite professional she is especially she pose on the long wooden chair with the back lighting from the near open end, I did climb up the table to shoot from top so see her laying pose. When I join to have photo shooting with Wendy, John already done some shots with his lighting setup, where he was using the soft box to fill in the soft light, that is great and the tone effect was so so so pretty!!! By the guidance from him, he show me on the camera and the flash gun setting and the position of the flash light source. The soft box can bring up the pretty skin tone in the dark environment, while we combine another flash from me to fill in the light for the environment, the picture looks more dramatic!!! The overall effect is just like what we always see from some fashion magazine (like some jeans commercial), yes! We made it!!! What a great trial I ever have….
There is a wooden train box abandoned at nearby, and the color on the wooden wall of the train box was light dirty blue, we used what we just learnt from John to set up 2 light source inside the box where 1 as the back light to the over all surrounding, another 1 is the soft box direct to the model’s face, cool…both Wendy and Deanne were pose stunning and high fashion just make use of the limited space inside the box and door of the box as well!!! Of cause we are also not missing out the chance to pose for each others with some crazy and funny pose and make the whole session funny!! At least being photographers also get the chance to pose and being photographed.

Last but not least, group photo is the must for this memorable and enjoyable outing!!! During the time we left, there is another group who just came for their portraiture session with a model. This place is absolutely stunning and popular for photographing!!! Pretty thanks to the organizer Alex and the rest of the members who made this outing successful and we can get to know more friends who are also “photo kaki” and of cause bravo to our models Deanne and Wendy, what the gorgeous, pretty and sexy ladies!!!