Swimsuit Photo Shoot-Photographing at Night
July 15th, 2009Ahhhh yes photographing a beautiful fashion model on the beach and getting paid for it. The ultimate dream for most beginning photographers. I mean come on, you’re at a beautiful beach, warm sun and beautiful women right in front of you. Well yes that is awesome. So when I got the call from my client I was stoked UNTIL she said she wants to shoot at night. My mind raced with every possible problem that I would face which of course the client has no clue about because that isn’t their job to know what problems could arise.
So we have fourteen swimsuits to photograph and five different locations at Sycamore Cove up in Ventura County. Call time was 8pm and we would shoot until 3:30am ! Ok so yes it is summer here in Los Angeles but at night especially the later it gets on the beach the temperature drops very low. I don’t know what the temp was exactly but it was friggin cold !
Yes the model was wearing pretty much nothing, the bikini’s are VERY small but I needed my fingers to work and needed my mind to function lol. I wore a skull cap to keep my bald head warm and a couple of sweatshirts.
Ok so enough of my bitching. Shooting on the beach during the day is a challenge but at night it is even more challenging. We had to calculate what night and time low tide would be and schedule the shoot accordingly. We got lucky as it was a full moon so we weren’t working in pitch blackness but it was dark. Flashlights were a must. I had two assistants, make up, hair etc. the whole shabang.
Now of course there is no electricity down on the beach so we rented a Profoto 7B pack, two heads and some grids. My key light had a large 4 x 6 foot Pro Foto soft box coming from camera left and up high angled down a bit. My f stop was f/8. The light you see on the rocks behind our model was bare bulb with the standard reflector attached and my first assistant hand held it at just the right spot. The tide would come in and sometimes the water was too high so we had to sit there and wait until I decided was the perfect time to pull the trigger. You can’t tell but Morgan our model was freezing her ass off . To make matters worse this was around 2:30 am ! It was VERY VERY cold. So here she is not moving a muscle waiting for me to fire the shot. This shoot was definitely a challenge. You know what’s cool ? You can’t even tell how difficult it was because the final image looks like it was a breeze. But that is what separates the men from the boys 
I would love to get some questions and comments on this post. There is much more info I have to offer. How in the world did I lock focus ? But I want you guys to ask and I also want you to think about not just the technical aspects of the shoot but the psychology and how as a photographer I had to keep my model feeling beautiful even though she was freezing and wet.
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Tags: catalog photography, fashion, fashion models, jason christopher los angeles, key light, lighting, modeling, night photography, photographing a beautiful fashion model, photographing models at night on the beach, photography at night, Photography Lighting Techniques, Shooting on the beach
July 16th, 2009 at 1:31 am
Interesting post, I like your writing style as well. Maybe it would help if you post a diagram of the lights setup that you used for this photo. More interested in the positioning of the lights rather than the type of equipment…thanks for sharing your technique!
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July 16th, 2009 at 5:34 am
First off…… “thank god” you FINALLY posted something dude…..!! I was about to send you a “Nastygram”!! (loving your posts even though I’m a new reader!)
Congratulations on the shot because Morgan certainly looks very comfortable as if the weather is just peachy and the water is warm!
Onto the technical questions – I see that you chose to light the background to separate Morgan from the black sheet of night. Why did you decide not to use a grid spot to perhaps hit her hair to produce even more separation?
IF you shot for 6 hours, those 8b packs are good for about 200 frames or so… Did you have a backup pack? Why did you not use a small diesel generator? (I’m guessing not a large enough crew to haul this stuff around?)
How did the model keep warm? Was she getting in and out of robes or was she just grinning and bearing it?
What was the power output of your 7b’s….. and what did you set your camera settings to……aperture…… shutter….ISO and white balance? (were you using a custom wb setting?”
Sorry for the questions…… but hey….. I think thats why I like your blog….’cause you answer questions!
tom
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July 16th, 2009 at 7:03 am
I loved your blog and thank you for all your helpful information Photograph looks great! How much did you have to do if anything editing? Do you use LR?
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Jason Christopher Reply:
July 16th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Hi Deborah, thank you so much for the compliments ! I actually do not retouch my photos. I have a team of retouchers that each specialize in specific areas of that craft. As far as I know they use a combination of Photoshop and Lightroom. The retouching was very minimal. What you see here and in 99.9% of my photographs is what came out of the camera with the exception of contrast, saturation cropping etc of course. The client didn’t want the model to look fake so there was little “smoothing” done with the skin. Let me reinforce though that the model has AMAZING skin to begin with which is key when casting your models.
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July 16th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Yes!!!!I guessed you either used a flashlight or a video light to insure focus lock!( Yes, its the small things that make me happy.) Anyway, now the question that begs to be answered is how did you get from child phsycology/teaching to high fashion photographer?
Next question, and I don’t know if you feel it as much as I do as a portrait photographer, but how do you see the industry changing in the next 5-10 years?
Glad you’re back, also glad you got slammed cause that means you are making money and that seems to be tricky in CA these days!
thanks
Laura T
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Jason Christopher Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
LOL Laura I am glad the small things make you happy.
You know I have always loved to teach and have been fascinated with human behavior both of which apply to photography. After I got my associates degree I did much thinking about the whole teaching industry and pay cuts and how little they get paid. I must admit that I did not want to work hard at something and not get paid accordingly. That old adage about loving what you do is more important than making alot of money is really a bunch of crap in my opinion especially in today’s world lol. Now that doesn’t mean I got into fashion photography because I wanted to be wealthy. I actually started a rock band, I’m a drummer, and tried making it as a rock star. Well that didn’t work out. But deep down inside since I was 13 I have always loved photography as it says in my bio. So after the rock band thing didn’t work, I decided that I really need to do what I love that resides deep in my soul. The rest is history
How do I see the fashion photography industry changing in the next 5-10 years ? I don’t think about that. What I do hope for is that clients will get it through their ignorant thick skulls that they can’t just hire any joe with a digital camera for a low ball price and get the results they seek. Being a great photographer is so much more than pushing a shutter and thinking that if you buy the best camera that you will take great photos. Do you think Mark Twain wrote with an amazing $5,000 pen or pencil ? Hell no. He wrote with a cheap number 2 pencil or a manual type writer. All the great masters, Herb Ritz, Avedon, Penn etc. used all manual cameras, no in meter cameras and $20k worth of lights.
But what they did have was fundamentals and they NEVER forgot how to put their fundamentals to use to make a great photo. I can truthfully tell you that I now regret the advent of digital. This is why I encourage you all to take my workshop. I want us all to be equal and be skilled so we can all get our deserved rate. That is what it was like 15-25 years ago. Photographers were respected much much more than they are now. I don’t get rich from my work shops. I do them to help all of you which in turn helps us all.
Thank you Laura I am glad I am back too. Remember I never leave, I just gotta pay the bills
You can always post on the blog and suggest topics that I have not covered.
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March 26th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Do you mind adding a lighting setup that you did for this photo? Would love to see how those two heads and grids were positioned.
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Jason Christopher Reply:
March 26th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Hi Janis,
Check out this link. http://jasonchristopher.com/blog/2009/07/31/lighting-diagram-for-swimsuit-photo-shoot-at-night/
Go through the archives, it would be well worth your time. There is a ton of info I provide on technique etc.
Thanx Janis !
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Janis Reply:
March 26th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Aweseome! Priceless
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