Surviving 1/13

Solenn Heussaff, 50mm f:2.8 speed 1/30

Solenn with one of her paintings

showing Solenn the first few frames

taken at around 1030am, with fill

shooting at the garden

at the outdoor den where Solenn paints, 50mm f:2.5 speed 1/40

Survivor Philippines finalist Solenn Heussaff is one of the few women I’ve met that registers almost exactly on camera how you see her in person. Her beauty and wit come across in her photos.

When I photographed Solenn for Yes Magazine, I photographed her house in Forbes as well. Though we started at 9am, the natural light coming in was insufficient, and was further lessened by the dark wood in the walls that (obviously) wouldn’t reflect light.

Indoors, when I mixed natural light with strobes, I had to sacrifice my speed, thus a bit of clarity. Even though I was using a tripod, the minute movement of my subject would cause minor blur. I had to shoot at slower speeds than I’d like, to balance my strobes with the natural light, because I wanted to shoot Solenn and the place the way I saw it. I ended up shooting between 1/13 and 1/40 for Solenn indoors and 1 sec for the rooms. For the shoot at the garden, speed wasn’t a problem. I used strobe as fill.

to get the highlight, fill was set at minimum

one of the numerous layouts: mixing natural light with strobes 17mm f:4 speed 1 sec

Solenn at her room, 85mm f:2.2 speed 1/13

the reason I go through lengths of mixing light: I like the natural light and shade

with makeup artist Krist Bansuelo

I used:

3 Hensel Proplus 500

Hensel Porty with 1200 head

softbox