Country House

The Solent Strobist group on Flickr had a group shoot at the end of March. 16 photographers, 8 models and more lighting gear than you'd find anywhere else on earth! It was my first ever group shoot, and to be honest I was unsure what to expect.



Despite being plagued with technical problems for most of the day I got a few shots I was happy with, and they are presented here. The shot of Sadaf at the top of this blog was a test shot while I was setting up the lights and Sadaf was shivering in someone else's fleece. Typically it turned out to be one of my favourites of the day!
The shot of Hannah above shows how half of my lighting was meant to look. Unfortunately I couldn't get the other flash gun to co-operate at all! The flash which has fired was to Hannah's right and behind her, hence the lack of light on her left hand side. Thinking about it now, another pair of hands with a reflector could have sorted that problem.



This shot of Eloise is with the same one light set up but I've turned the model more towards the side the light is coming from which has resulted in much reduced shadows, making it a much more pleasing look.

Back outside and I thought Sadaf deserved a little rest from all her hard work modelling. I asked her to lay down on this stone seat, and used a 1/2 CTO gel to throw in a little warmer light to the scene. I'm really pleased with how this one turned out, and its a different approach to posing the subject that no-one else tried that day. If you're thinking of heading out with a bunch of people for a group shoot, then all I can say is do it! I had a lot of "down time" that day, but still ended up with a handful of decent shots and I learnt a lot from the other people there too.