Daria

On a recent trip to Toronto to visit family and friends, I had the opportunity to work with Daria. I had a total of 20 minutes of shooting time with her, so we moved fast. The studio, located on the second or third floor, had a high ceiling and a very large window. There was light cloud cover, with the sun peeking out occasionally, giving the light a beautiful soft quality. With gorgeous light like that, Daria could stand almost anywhere around and remain nicely lit.

You’ll see that I almost always had her nose to the window and her body towards me. It contours the face in a natural way and is super flattering. At the same time, the light rakes across the body at a right angle to provide beautiful shadows that accentuate all her curves. For the reclining images, I’m shooting short side straight into the window so that the light skims across her, highlighting just the edges of her body. Working with an experienced model in a beautiful space like this, it would have been almost impossible to take a bad shot.

In terms of equipment, I’m using the cheapest full frame DSLR that you can buy, the Canon 6D Mark ii, and a $300 zoom lens. I do have much more expensive lenses, but I love using this cheap one. The zoom lens allows me to move and shoot fast. As long as the light is good, it doesn’t matter what kind of equipment you shoot with.

I'll take a test shot to check my lighting and although the lighting is set up for the shot, because the model isn't posing, they seem very naturalistic given the context.