Shooting Portraits with Elimchrom 175 cm Octabox as back light and plain background

I have received a lot of requests to do a quick post of shooting portraits with a white background (backlight and plain ) and so have writing this post. FYI this might not be the text book way of achieving the result, but as long as it works for me and the client is happy, its fine :)

The Elinchrom 175 cm Octabox is one of the best for shooting portraits. the 175 cm is really large and gives soft, diffused lighting to the subject. 

in this quick post, i want to show u some examples where i have taken advantage of the large 175 cm size and used the elinchrom 175 octa as backlight and even as a plain white background

Goodbye Seychelles, Hello Dubai Hello Bengaluru

so 7 days had passed so quickly and now we were waiting for our cabbie to pick us up and drop us to the international airport.
ours was the first flight from Mahe to Dubai and since protocol demands we be at the airport at least 3 hours in advance meant that we would be spending a lot of time at the departure terminal at Mahe.

The Seychelles Diaries - Day 7 - Glass Bottom Boat

Day 7 :  so here it was, our very last day! once again, our tour guide had informed us that we would be the only couple to go on the glass bottom boat ride as the other tourists had rescheduled their plans.

so effectively this turned out to be a very private , romantic date, with just me and my wife niki.

The Seychelles Diaries - Day 6 - Scuba Diving

Scuba diving was something nikki was interested to do the very first day we landed in Seychelles! and the place we stayed at was called "Diver's Lodge" kept reminding her of scuba diving and we had "Big Blue Divers" for our immediate next door neighbours.
me on the other hand, well, am petrified of water, have always been, and so was not really keen to go scuba diving. when we met the instructor, i nearly signed up for scuba diving as well, but my senses prevailed and i decided not to enrol while nikki was jumping for joy!

The Seychelles Diaries - Day 5 - Sunday at Victoria + Lunch at Butcher's Grill + Dinner at La Plage

the only time we actually got to explore the city on our own was on day 5, which also happened to be a lazy sunday.

after our super awesome breakfast, we decided to travel to Victoria by local bus as it was the cheapest way to get to the main city and back. we totally forgot to overlook the fact that on a Sunday, nothing open! literally, all the shops are closed, the markets closed , only a few restaurants are open.

managed to ask a few friendly locals if any restaurants would be open as it was lunch time already, and we finally got to eat Seychelles Junk Food courtesy The Butcher's Grill.

The Seychelles Diaries - Day 4 - Praslin + Ladigue + Emmanuelle house + Anse Volbert +Coco De Mer + Anse Lazio +Baobab Pizza

for me, day 4 was the most memorable from our entire Seychelles trip. thats coz we got to do so much and see so much and meet a lot of people.

Catamaran from Mahe to Praslin and Ladigue : 

another early breakfast and Paul our designated driver dropped us from our lodge to the harbour where our tour operator Sultanne was waiting for ur with our catamaran pass.

Mahe was the main island with a population of about 75000 people while Praslin (pronounced Praa-Lean) and Ladigue were the other 2 important and big islands , with a combined population of not more than 4000 people.

everyone depended on catamaran for transport from one island to another and it was really expensive! our each ticket cost ur around SRs 3000/- and i was told the locals have a monthly pass to make commuting easier.

The Seychelles Diaries - Day 3 - Copolia Nature Trail + Beau Valon beach at night

Nikki and I were extremely excited on day 3 after finding out that we were the only couple to be part of Copolia nature trail with our very own personal tour guide Steve.

as usual we were greeted to the sounds of colourful birds waking us up, and after my fav breakfast 'bacon-ham-egg' we were off to explore the beautiful mountains of Seychelles.

Shooting Glamour Portraits from Home - Help and Tips + all 4 parts in 1 post

its not as easy as it seems, but here are a few pointers that everyone needs to keep in mind

The Model : its great if the model has a lot of patience (along with looking stunningly beautiful) and its an added advantage if she can do her own make up! otherwise its going to get difficult to find a make up artist last minute! 

Glamour Portraits from Home - Bedroom

Part IV - Glamour Portraits from Home - Bedroom

not exactly Boudoir , but not too boring either. for the bedroom shoot i wanted to use just 1 600 RT flash unit with available lighting.

the 2 bedrooms we used had 2 different natural light options. for the forst one, we kept a 600 RT flash unit in the balcony at low power, while the model was posing in a long sweat shirt on the bed.

Glamour Portraits from Home - Basement and Outdoor

Part III Glamour Portraits from Home - Basement and Outdoor

Basement shooting was a bit tricky as there was absolutely no good source of light and i had to use 2  600 RT flashes mounted on 2 stands with soft box.

this purpose of the shoot was to highlight the model and NOT the car. the car was merely used as a prop.

the trick here was to achieve a good hair light and so we had to make several modifications to the car seat to allow the light to fall on the models head.

Glamour portraits from Home - Hallway Elevator

Part II - Glamour Portraits from Home - Hallway Elevator

for this, we were fortunate to again take the help of natural lighting , thanks to the very large window . here i decided to use 1 flash set up 600 RT mounted on stand with soft box , which was triggered using another 600 RT flash mounted on my Canon 1DX and Canon 5d mark III.

Glamour Fashion Portraits at Home - Living Room

Location hunting is a major pain , especially if its a last minute impromptu shoot.

normally a good location will have a nice uncluttered room for indoor shoots or a beautiful garden for outdoor shoots. and a typical place for a shoot would be a "resort" or "hotel" but not without demanding their pound of flesh. at one resort in Bengaluru we were told that a pro shoot would cost us anything above Rs 1 lakh! or if they had to charge per hour it would cost us Rs 10,000 per hour.

Shooting outdoor portraits using the Sunny 16 rule with 1 light set up

Shooting outdoor portraits using the Sunny 16 rule

i was fortunate to attend a workshop on "Understanding light" by my mentor Dr. Krishna Mohan and i wanted to know the best way to get portraits using an external light source in broad daylight. thats when Dr. Krishna explained the "Sunny 16 rule" to us.

and a few days later i was able to use what he taught us at the workshop pretty effectively.

The primary purpose of this shoot (for me) is to darken the backgrounds and mainly focus on the subject giving it a dramatic look with 1 light source. (at the workshop we used an external speedlite) when we use a narrow aperture like f 16 at 1/125 shutter speed at ISO 100 , without flash/strobe, the resulting image will be very dark. at such situations adding light from a flash or strobe will only illuminate the subject/model at close distances keeping the backgrounds dark. so the subject 'pops out' in the photo.

The Seychelles Diaries - Day 2 - Beau valon and Marie Antoinette Restaurant

marie antoinette restaurant

The second day of our honeymoon began by admiring the surroundings of divers lodge. right in front of our lodge was an open patio where the residents could sit have their breakfast whilst watching the waves of  Beau Vallon . The owners of divers lodge grow tomatoes, green chillies and mangoes in their garden. Close to the patio  is a small bird food dispenser . It brings the most beautiful birds of seychelles every morning! we managed to spot the red fody also called the madagascar fody it resembles a small orange to red feathered sparrow. A few others were the zebra dove or the barred ground dove and the seychelle bulbul. It was heavenly to hear the morning waves, sounds of chirping birds and the scenic turquoise colored waters of Beau Vallon!

The Seychelles Diaries - Day 1 - Tour of Mahe

pic clicked from the cab we were travelling in

the first thing we did after we got out from the airport was to convert Euros to Seychellois Rupees. Euros, Dollars, British Pounds are all accepted in Seychelles, but its always better to carry the local currency so u get back the exact change. at that time, 1 SR = 5 INR approx. and 1 Euro = 16 SR approx.

we managed to get a cab just outside the airport and the lodge we were booked at "Diver's Lodge" was situated at Beau Vallon beach which is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. it was a 20 minute drive, covering a distance of about 15 kms.

topographically the island of Mahe and rest of the islands that comprise Seychelles is pristine beaches and granitic mountains. thats it. buying houses is very expensive coz u either get the beach front or the mountain range. in both cases, beautiful , ridiculously gorgeous landscapes.

Few things u need to know about Seychelles

• its comprises of 155 islands and only a handful of them are inhabited. 
• the largest island is Mahe, and Victoria is the capital
• Victoria is also the worlds smallest capital city
• the population of Mahe is about 70,000
• the other major islands are Praslin, La Digue and Silhouette islands
• languages spoken are French, English and Seychellois Creole. 
• the local cuisine or Creole food has chicken curry (non spicy), fish baked or steamed, and lots of vegetables, with the occasional fruit bat and octopus. 
• Cable and wireless is the primary telecommunications firm based in Seychelles, the other is Airtel
• a bus ride to any point costs SR 5/-
• Seybrew beer is the local beer and its delicious!
• the people live in complete religious harmony and ethnically Africans, Indians and Chinese are the local inhabitants.
• they dont have any manufacturing units in Seychelles except Tuna , which is exported throughout the world , making them the biggest exporters. 
• everything is Seychelles is super expensive! thats because everything comes into Seychelles by boat/ship 

Honeymoon tip #1 : NEVER plan a tour on the very first day on arrival!