![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/models\/oktavia\/NV2_8831-edit.jpg\")
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Oktavia is the stunning model on the cover of my book about off-camera flash<\/a><\/strong>. We’ve intended to do another photo shoot ever since then, but busy schedules kept us from that until recently. A theme that Oktavia wanted to explore, was that of the Urban Ballerina. The idea with the urban ballerina is the contextual dissonance of having a graceful dancer in the middle of some urban setting. There’s no real meaning to it other than contrasting art & beauty against the harsher urban setting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With this grand view of the GW bridge leading in to Manhattan, we had Oktavia pose on this narrow ledge. But we had to forego ballerina shoes since the ledge was just too precarious to have someone balance on the tips of her toes right there.<\/p>\n We were working in a shaded area compared to the background, so I had to use off-camera flash to light her.\u00a0The lighting setup was simple.\u00a0A speedlight in a softbox to the camera left, and a bare speedlight to the right. I flagged the speedlight on the right with a\u00a0black foamie thing<\/a>\u00a0to minimize lens flare.<\/p>\n At the distance I placed the speedlights, I had both of them set to full manual output. This gave me: Ideally, I would’ve liked more light on her from the softbox, since the background is slightly brighter than I would’ve liked. A larger lighting setup like a Profoto kit would’ve been better, or perhaps a dual (or even triple) speedlight setup with a softbox on camera left.<\/p>\n The Urban Ballerina is definitely a theme with an interesting premise, and one I’d like to explore more in future.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n other articles featuring Oktavia: <\/p>\n Equipment used with this photo session:<\/p>\n Nikon D3; \u00a0Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 AF-S<\/a>\u00a0(B&H) photo session: urban ballerina – Oktavia Oktavia is the stunning model on the cover of my book about off-camera flash. We’ve intended to do another photo shoot ever since then, but busy schedules kept us from that until recently. A theme that Oktavia wanted to explore, was that of the Urban Ballerina. The idea with Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,22,24,110,622,1,274],"tags":[871,273,892],"yst_prominent_words":[6888,1845,1844,6879,1847,1656,2064,1120,1583,1580,6891,1142,1143,1145,1665,1146,2584,6882,6877,6886],"class_list":{"0":"post-9145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-flash-photography","8":"category-lighting","9":"category-models","10":"category-off-camera-flash","11":"category-oktavia","12":"category-uncategorized","13":"category-urban-ballerina","14":"tag-flash-photography","15":"tag-off-camera-speedlight-setup","16":"tag-urban-ballerina","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9145"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50331,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9145\/revisions\/50331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9145"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n
\n1\/250 @ f8 @ 200 ISO<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/models\/oktavia\/tangents\/NV2_8807-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n–\u00a0Photoshop tips \u2013 retouching for portraits<\/a>
\n–\u00a0sequence of photos \u2013 posing a model<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(2x)\u00a0Nikon SB-910 Speedlight<\/a>\u00a0controlled by\u00a0PocketWizard FlexTT5 Transceiver\u00a0&\u00a0AC3 Controller<\/a>
\nor alternately, (2x)\u00a0Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite<\/a>\u00a0controlled by\u00a0Canon ST-E3 Transmitter<\/a>
\nLastolite EZYBOX Softbox Kit (24″x24″)<\/a>\u00a0(B&H)
\nblack foamie thing<\/a>
\n(2x)\u00a0Manfrotto 1004BAC<\/a>\u00a0light-stand (B&H)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"