The DecisiveDesign Blog

Seeing as Texas winters don’t exactly offer the best options for outdoor, natural light photography, I began looking for an indoor location to rent when it started getting cooler in the Fall. Randomly, I came across a craigslist add for Zofaa Photo Studios and inquired.

The studio is located in Irving, off of 183 & Beltline, charges $25/hr for use of the facilities, lights, backdrops, and a few props, and is run by a gentleman by the name of Uyi Abraham.  The price and equipment is great for someone just getting into the industry, such as myself, and Abraham let me come in an hour early to play with the gear, setup, and get a feel for the place.

My model, Samantha, whom I met while shooting my Downtown Dallas: Growing Towards the Future project, is a Hooters waitress and aspiring actress/model. She’s done a few films and is really looking to become more of a presence in that scene. This was her first real photoshoot, so we did some experimentation and had a lot of fun. She got out of her element a bit, and we took some really great pictures.  

This was my first time to really work with any external lighting equipment, so figuring out the remote flash, strobe sensitivities, angles, and distances to the subject was all handled by the exact science of “winging it.”  There are definitely several things to work on in the lighting department, including testing out some higher power instruments to see if that makes things easier, but I learned a lot (see lessons learned below) and should have much better luck in the future. 

Below are some of the best business-casual shots that were produced.  They haven’t all been edited 100% – sorry, there’s only 24hrs in the day.

 

• Don’t forget your grey card for color correction – Time Saver!
• Always take a couple of test-shots and check them out in the computer before continuing Adjust lighting distances, intensities, and other variables in the beginning to insure consistent shooting for the rest of the event
• Throw some light on the background if it’s white so you get a pure white backdrop and some more depth
• Strobes can fire remotely and trigger off of one another’s flash
• Don’t install editing software on your computer the night before a shoot that might overwrite other software you actually want to use, thus making you have to panic thinking all the images are corrupt while your subject is waiting to review images that won’t show up.