10/21/2024
The Breakdown: Nikon D810, Nikon 85mm f/1.4G lens, f/1.4, 1/2000 sec, ISO 64. Single strobe setup with the Godox AD200 with the Westcott RapidBox XXL.
When I was taking this photograph. I knew going into the shot that I wanted to shoot at a wide aperture in order to blow out the background with bokeh. It was very sunny outside. The time of day was around 2:59pm ET. Since it was sunny outside, I wanted to find a shaded spot to photograph the client under. I used this location underneath a tree that was casting some shade. I positioned the client beneath the tree and asked her to strike an interesting pose. I asked the assistant to boom the softbox at a downward angle towards the subject. I was shooting with the Nikon D810 with the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G lens in Manual mode. The first thing I wanted to do was dial in the correct exposure for the background scene around the subject. Once you have the correct exposure dialed in, taking a photograph of the subject without the strobe would produce a scene with the subject looking like a silhouette. After I dialed in my settings on the camera, I added the Godox AD200 strobe to light the subject in the photograph. The purpose of the strobe is to balance out the exposure of the subject with the exposure of the background ambient light. My focus point on the subject is always going to be the eyes. I composed my shot and focused on the eyes of the client, then recomposed the photograph to have what I wanted within the frame and I took the shot. The photographed was edited in Capture One Pro initially and finished within Photoshop.
