Doing my first TFP session

[Claire]

I have no clue if I'm putting this in the right forum, but seems like the most appropriet place.

I'm doing my first TFP session in a few hours. The girl is half caucasian/half black (yeah, yeah African Swedish then). Not sure how dark her skin is as I've only seen one B&W pic of her. Think it's similar to Beyonce's or maybe a bit lighter.

I've never taken portraits of anyone with that much darker skin and wondering if there's anything I should keep in mind. We're shooting outdoors. It's typical Swedish winter weather, i.e. -5 and bright sunshine with clear blue sky. We'll shoot from 2pm and onwards in the middle of Gothenburg.

She will have straightened her hair, wear somewhat fitting trousers, some top with a bit more colour and a dark thigh-lenght coat. I'm aiming for regular portraits, with hopefully a bit of fashion influence (never done fashion photography). She'll be wearing classical make up.

I don't have a reflector btw. Just bringing the DRebel with kit lens and my tripod. In short; very basic stuff.

The girl is not experienced with modelling and when speaking to her she seems to want instructions. I can do that (I hope!). Anything else I should think of to make this first time for both of us run smoothly? Things I should keep in mind in general?

Oh yeah, I'm also going through old magazines to get inspiration for the shoot. You can tell I'm prepaired, eh? :o (Hey, I've never planned a photo shoot before! I usually improvise!)

Thanks for your any help.
/Claire

[PhotosGuy]

I don't have a reflector btw. So? Who said you have to buy one? How about a 30"X40" art board? White on one side. Get some spray adhesive & glue aliminium foil on the other.
Goto:
http://www.irphotoschool.com/lessons/c750basic/c750basic.php
Scroll 1/2 down to:
Taking Portraits Outdoors
(I think they overdid the effect here, but assume it was for the purposes of the demo.) Have fun! ;)

[snibbetsj]

Claire, making a reflector out of cardboard and foil will work great. Do you have an external flash? If so, make use of that for fill flash also. Will work best with some kind of diffuser on it. You can also use a piece of a white trash or grocery bag to diffuse the internal flash.

Spend some time planning your poses so you won't have to come up with them on the spur of the moment. This will go a long ways to making this flow smoothly.

[Claire]

Had the session and it felt weird trying to photograph a stranger. Someone I haven't even seen proper pictures of.

Planning, well I think that's one thing I have to learn. I'm so used to improvising with friends. She was nice though and had her three year-old son along. He was running around picking sticks and stuff. It was freezing cold. Brrr. I think I should stick to spring and summer photography. lol

Will try to make a homemade reflector at some point. Thanks for the tips!

[tim]

I'm going to try this soon too, so any more tips would be appreciated. Is a reflector really needed or helpful?

[PhotosGuy]

Is a reflector really needed or helpful? No. Depends on what you want your pics to look like. Maybe you need deep shadows for the effect you're going for. Learn all the techniques so you know how to get what you need.
Nothing is always right, or wrong! (But you'd better be ready to justify why you did it the way you did to the client.) Did you check out the link I left above?

[tim]

Good tips there, thanks :)

[roebuck]

Keeping the thread going if I may.
Whilst I agree with the use of a reflector provided it is not over done, I have had some success just using the Canon 300D's on board flash as a fill flash. With being pretty weak by comparison to the 420EX flash I can use it with out a diffuser and it gives the necessary lift and catch lights in the eyes, generally won't give red eye either.

Claire are we likely to see some photos?

Cheers
Michael

[Claire]

The images are here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=62035) . :)

[PhotosGuy]

The images are here Which?