Sound Addiction :: PYKtures Stories

Ever since my first university semester started, Michelle Lim and I wanted to get together for a concept driven photoshoot but we ended up not having the time to lead such project to completion: I study a lot and Michelle studies then works a lot. Through our various phone calls, we started throwing ideas around: man shirt, headphones, windows, bed or just something sexy. Then we finally got a date to shoot, this is the story behind the sexiest shoot I ever made.


The objective

It was clear from the start that I wanted my next photoshoot with Michelle to be even sexier than the previous one. The previous one was more fashion oriented and happened in fall during the photo outing my friend Ben Wong organized (man I miss those outings) and it was mostly improvised. The theme of Michelle’s shoot this time is about a girl dressed with a man’s white shirt and some tight garments on a bed. Because we wanted to use window light, the shoot had to happen inside. The location was fixed to be at my place.


The challenge
I decided that the shoot would happen on my bed (no don’t get any funny ideas!). My room has a window but that window doesn’t receive a lot of light. My Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 was still in repairs so I had to use my kit lenses, mostly the Nikkor AF-S 18-105mm VR because I needed the image stabilization to get most of the ambient light without using an ISO too high and get noise. In that situation, I would admit noise might compromise the shot vs. a concert/event shot where I wouldn’t care much about it… It was also a cloudy day. This means that the light that goes through my window is already dimmed but is softer than sunlight so I’m sort of thankful for that…


The solution

I’ve read on Hot Shoe Diaries (a very good book that I lost, stupid me…) that Joe McNally would sometimes use the flash to mimic daylight. Thus, I tried to implement his teachings to my photography. I used:

• A Nikon Speedlight SB-600
• A Gary Fong Lightsphere
• A Manfrotto 190xProb + 486RC2

I put that gear on the left of Michelle to complement the window light I was getting from my window. Also, to keep some ambient light, I had to use a medium ISO value.


The shoot
That day, my bed had this incredibly colorful duvet cover and it was very fitting to complement the white shirt with black tight garment she would wear. When she arrived, we started looking for cool looking headphones to put on her head: we first thought of using

• the Sennheiser HD202: Too ugly of headphones
• the Sony MDR-150: Too typical
• the Koss Porta Pros: Too small
• the Koss UR20: Too “princess leia” and bland

While digging in my dad’s goldmine of hi-fi audio gear (which I won’t tell how much they cost… probably more than my current photo gear ><) and found a lost treasure: The Koss ProAA headphones.

To put the room in a sexy mood I put the music of Clazziquai through the speakers. Michelle was giving some great poses one after another and I was really sweating. Felt like she was flirting with the camera or something. Anyhow, I had a great time to shoot that and was very happy and honored to do it.

here are the best shots of the photoshoot.

Afterthoughts
I hate to complain about gear, but I did feel that my picture would be sharper if I had the Tamron. This is yet another occasion where the shoot would heavily benefit from low-light sharper lenses than my kit. Yet this moment could happen anytime other than this day, because Michelle wouldn’t be free (and she’s still very busy at the time this article will hit the blog). I wouldn’t totally deny the need of a MUA (Make Up Artist) but I feel Michelle does make up pretty well I would say, until proven otherwise. I’m beginning to wonder if I would have the chance to shoot girls like that ever again even though I would really wish to do that again. I’m yet again so lucky to have such good-looking friends and I thank them for being this great. Now I got to do some sports to be good-looking as well, for myself.