Definitely Dancer

I'm not a huge music lover, but I love music. I know what I like, and I listen to it. I don't explore new stuff, I don't listen to the radio. I like U2. I like John Denver. I like the Beatles, but I don't have their albums. I like BNL. I like They Might Be Giants. I like Natalie Merchant. I like Adele (and for the longest time she was the farthest thing from a white British gal in my mind).

Nikon D800, 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro Lens, f/3, 1/125s, ISO 200.

I was introduced to The Killers a few years ago, and I think they are the best in a long time. I like this song, Human.

This is K., again, and she's definitely a Dancer. Even when she's standing still, she's performing. She's thoughtful and wants to know what to do. She gets frustrated when my students don't tell her what to do, don't give her direction. I guess she doesn't realize that she's doing it already.

Nikon D800, 70-200mm f/2.7 VR II lens @98mm, f/4, 1/160s, ISO 800, Nik Color Efex Pro4.

Setup for these was simple and fun. Let's start with the second one first. It's just a 40x40" continuous light softbox on the right. Black paper background. The light is sitting a little higher than K. pointed slightly downward. I think we had the white reflector on the right side, too. She's spinning and moving so I turned up the ISO to allow me to have a faster shutter speed to freeze her motion a little. This isn't the most perfect or graceful image I made of K. that night, but I think's the most fun; she's laughing and real and imperfect. It's perfect. Made this one at the Mansion during our beginning digital photography class.

The first image above is made during our portrait class. We're in a stairwell at USU's library. There's a small speedlight behind K. set at almost it's lowest setting, and that's for two reasons. First, when you put a colored gel on a light and you want lots of color, you use a low setting, otherwise the color is washed out. The second reason is that light coming from behind aimed toward the camera is more efficient than a light aimed at someone's face and bouncing back toward the camera. From behind it's skimming into the lens, from the front it's a full 180 degree turn to get back. Think about it, and you'll get it.

The light on the front of her face is a speedlight set into a small 24" softbox and set at it's lowest setting, and positioned about 9 inches from her face. Being close to her makes it very soft and also makes it disappear quickly so that it doesn't affect the background and barely even lights her shirt. I like this one. It's a very Noir image to me.

Thanks, K.