Dust Dancer Shoot Part 2 - Tutorial, How to Shoot

I wanted to be able to share with you my set up and process on how to do my dust series!

First things first... this is an incredibly messy shoot. Flour will get on and in everything!!! That is just a word to the wise, covering everything up in plastic will save you tons of headaches in the future. I am talking about making the room look like a scene from Dexter.

Once you have your kill room... I mean Studio properly covered, you will need your gear!

THE GEAR NEEDED:

I was able to get this shoot done really easily using only two strobes, and two softboxes. I get strobes can be expensive, but you can do the same using 2 speedlights too.

Next you need a black backdrop. You can use cloth, I chose paper. I figured anything that I used would be essentially ruined afterwards, so paper would be the easiest to clean up and throw away.

You will want to have, but is not required, black flags. These are essentially just black posterboard that you can get at any arts and crafts store. The whole purpose for having those is to reduce any flare that the camera will pick up because the lights will be essentially shining towards the camera.

THE SET UP:

Now that you got the gear, here is how you set it up!

Like I mentioned earlier, the lightind set up is really easy. You are basically rim-lighting the subject. The light will shine from behind them and wrap them in a beautiful glowing light. The power will be different depending on the strobes, but make sure they are identical to each other.

For my camera, I was shooting at:
ISO 100
SS 1/160
Fstop 5.6

For the model, we would have her bent over where were would be shooting, cover her in flour, and then count down. She would then do her jump and with the right timing, we were able to get the jump pose, the flour, and the hair to line up perfectly. This is not a fast shoot. You will constantly do the same pose over and over and over. So make sure you don't tire out your model!

Other than that, that is how it all went down! Here is a video too to show you the behind the scenes!

Let me know what you think!

Victor
www.facebook.com/victorgphoto2
www.instagram.com/victorgfoto