On Location Photography: Edgy, Athletic Portrait

Step One 

My concept was fairly technical: Create an edgy, athletic portrait that needed precision lighting. For this shot to work, I’d slowly build up the lighting, adding narrow edges of light to precise parts of the image. This lighting would support nice, gritty, postproduction work when it was all done.

We began the lighting setup, aimed down at my model, Janelle, using an overhead Elinchrom 27″ Softlite Reflector attached to a Ranger pack. This light would add a nice rim light to her hair, with just a little spill onto her shoulders. Shooting with my Nikon D4 at f/8 and 1/200, I set the light so that the highlight was bright, about 1/2 stop overexposed. The only light showing in the frame was from strobes; no interior light was visible.