{"id":14336,"date":"2013-05-10T22:56:56","date_gmt":"2013-05-11T02:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=14336"},"modified":"2026-03-13T01:50:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:50:57","slug":"photo-session-modern-gypsies-stilt-walking-showgirl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/photo-session-modern-gypsies-stilt-walking-showgirl\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo session – Modern Gypsies – stilt-walking showgirl"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo session – Modern Gypsies – stilt-walking showgirl<\/h1>\n

On the same day that we did the\u00a0Silver Birds photo session with the Modern Gypsies<\/a>, we did a few other setups, including this one where Irene was on stilts … as a showgirl. Since the photos are meant for their promotional material, we needed to make the images vibrant.<\/p>\n

We scouted around a warehouse district of Brooklyn, looking for interesting backgrounds. I felt that this huge mural would make a colorful background compared to the bright white costume.<\/p>\n

Still working with the\u00a0usual\u00a0Profoto Acute B2 600 Ws powerpack<\/a> (affiliate<\/em>)\u00a0with a\u00a0Profoto beauty dish<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>)\u00a0for our lighting. Lots of juice in a very portable arrangement, and easy to set up.<\/p>\n

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Setting up. Here you can get an idea of just how tall Irene was on those stilts. Fortunately, the\u00a0Manfrotto 1004BAC tall light-stand<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>)\u00a0goes as high as 12 feet. I didn’t want the light to come from below her – I dislike horror movie lighting. So the light still had to come in from an appropriately high angle.<\/p>\n

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Camera settings: 1\/250 @ f\/5.6 @ 200 ISO
\nI intentionally under-exposed the available light so that the flash would make the image pop. The main image here was over-exposed by 2\/3rds of a stop because I asked Irene to move forward and I didn’t adjust the power on the Profoto. It was easy enough to pull the exposure down on the RAW file with no detriment to the final image.<\/p>\n

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I felt that even though this background was complementary, we didn’t really get a sense of Irene’s height on the stilts in the final images.<\/p>\n

So we moved around the corner and shot down the sidewalk. The sun-drenched look (along with the differently scaled architecture), gave a completely different look to the images.<\/p>\n

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Camera settings: 1\/250 @ f\/5.6 @ 100 ISO
\nThe comparison photo to show the effect of the lighting.<\/p>\n

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I do love this lighting setup –\u00a0the\u00a0Profoto Acute B2 600 Ws powerpack<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>),\u00a0with a\u00a0Profoto beauty dish<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>)\u00a0(and a\u00a022″ sock\u00a0over the beauty dish<\/a>.) The recycle time is fast, and it isn’t a problem to dump enough light to match the sun on a bright day.<\/p>\n

And if you were wondering just how Irene got her head-gear on … this is how we went about it. Peter Salo, who helped me on the day, steadying Irene backwards.<\/p>\n

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Photo gear (or equivalents) used in this photo session<\/h2>\n