In the Studio with Etienne Similien "Boss Shoot"

This week I had an incredible shoot with an up and coming model named Etienne Similien Model Mayhem Account. I rarely shoot male models but not by choice just because I haven't been contacted by a lot so I was super excited! Etieene had a great personality and was extremely easy to work with. We started out doing some basic head shots for his port. As always I shoot with 1 AlienBee B800 and 2 Neweer 180w strobes. 

I wanted to go into a little about this photo I got with him. Im still in the process of editing several photos but here is the 1st one from many. 

So the Etieene brought this cool vest and and bow tie and some sunglasses and boom immediately "Mafia Boss" came into my mind! Unfortunately I didn't have any cigars so I had him hold a flashlight and figured hey I'll go back in and composite in a cigar. 

So we shot this with the 2 Neweer Lights directly on the side with 1x1 softboxes. I had to take several shots just using the boxes  to make sure the light was where I wanted it to be. 

After several shots where the light was perfect on the sides giving me that edgy look and the middle of his face was completely in shadow I turned on the AlienBee which was above the camera about 8" from his face. I made a custom modifier by taking a 10 degree grid and using gaffer tape and taping it leaving about a 3/4"-1" gap where the light could come through. I like this modifier because it lets just a slit of light come through. 

The next step was to make sure that light wasnt overpowering the side lights. As you can see the reflection in this picture from the modifier. 

You have to keep the modifier close so the light will stay thin. I've learned the farther away it is the wider the light becomes so hes about 8-10 inches from the light which is still rather far.

The final image I decided to use was shot at 80mm with the Canon 6D 24-105mm lens. My setting, as they always are in studio, were ISO 100, F8, 1/160 shutter speed. I never change my setting I only change the output of the lights. The following are the original photo before editing and some behind the scenes photos to show the setup.

As always if you have any questions please contact me at Matt@PhotoDayography.com and visit my website www.PhotoDayography.com.

I will post a followup blog about the retouching on this and a couple other pictures from our shoot.

~Matt~