‘Motion Creates Emotion’ SHOOT AT HOME WITH SPEEDLIGHTS

I was aiming to create a candid, energetic series within a carefully designed lighting setup. The one and only true concept pillar here was: “Let the girl move and we will see how it turns out in the results achieved”.

We had a somewhat hard time to get into that extroverted free flowing craziness at first. Loosening up to this extreme was not easy but we got there. So, what did I do?

My Implementation

Music, the right one, is key. The “right” one ultimately depends on the taste of both you and your model. First of all, you want to create a pace and mood. A light rock guitar play, a fancy fast pop song or heavy metal drums (if the serve the purpose and you both like them) are certainly better suited than a piano concerto from Rachmaninov.

Good Action Radius. Another important factor is to provide an adequate action radius for your model. The action area is the space available where she can act and freak out. She will need a certain amount of spatial freedom for the performance of her moves. Fulfilling this requirement basically comes down to a suitably planned lighting design. The illuminated area needs to be wide enough or else the result would be a model that steps out of the light and falls into dark areas all the time.

Background. I have chosen a black color to make the setting appear more dramatic. Now black was not exactly my first choice, gray would have been perfect. Yet shortly before the production, I found out that I did not have any grey backdrop in stock (must have been used for some previous shoot).
Gray would have been perfect for two reasons: You can either make it appear black, or – when strongly illuminated – (almost) white. So, my original plan was to darken the gray (dramatic, remember?) but now I had to go the opposite way: Brighten up the black quite a bit. This leads to the fourth important point in my implementation: Speedlight power.

Lighting Issues. Strong power, slow recycling time. Because I had to use the black backdrop, the power of my speedlights had to be increased quite a bit in order to get a brighter scene. Now basically this was no problem since the speedlights were strong enough. However, this approach is not very economical. Boosting (much) more power not only drains the battery faster but also makes the recycling time much slower. This in fact is exactly the thing you will not want when shooting an “action” sequence: slow recycling time.

The outcome was that I had to wait (2 secs) until my strobes were back to full power before I was able to fire them again. No chance to take continuous snaps of the ongoing performance. This is super-annoying when you are not able to pace the action yourself. But this is the situation I was in and that I had to deal with…

Lighting Concept

The setting consisted of two lights and some helpers. We had a key light and a fill-in which acted as an edge-/effect light.

Posing Is Based On Trust

Energetic joy, movements, body act and genuine moments. Yes, “being genuine” is key!
Once your model is relaxed, at ease and loosened up in space and music, you start snapping away. You are capturing all the kind of crazy feelings, all the ecstatic expressions. The hunt begins and your task is to kill it…

My experience shows that this concept works best with extroverted personalities yet this attribute does not at all guarantee a successful shoot either. Everything comes down to trust, to feeling secure on set – speaking from the model’s perspective. Most of the hesitation (= feeling clammed) comes from the vague feel that she could look ridiculous, that others would find her behavior stupid. This is actually the situation (= her feeling) that you need to resolve: To clear out her anxiety that she (her acting) will be perceived as ridiculous.

Once you have assured your subject of the fact that anything goes when it comes to her act, that there are no “stupid” expressions, no ridiculous poses, she will most likely feel safer and more confident.

Your Model Has The Final Say
One big thing that you (could) offer is to give her an overview of your selections and reassure her that she will have the final say.

If your model has the right to make the final decision, then she knows that she could potentially stop an image from being published/used where she classifies herself as “looking stupid”. These steps and the concession of having a final say will convince most potential candidates to feel safe, relaxed and finally help them to transition into a playful mood.