Out of my depth with a promo model

So I've been tasked with shooting a black car, at night in an industrial area. This is something I am fairly comfortable with as I usually use light painting. But the client also wants a promo model to lay on the bonnet etc which obviously doesnt work with light painting.

Should I lightpaint the car, then set up the strobes for the model, or is there another way??

My gear is a FF camera (w/ tripod), 24-70mm, 2x Alien Bee strobes, 2x speedlights,1x 34" softbox, 2x 11 foot lightstands, and 2x LED lightbanks for light painting.

This is what I did with my first black car:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …ankellyphotos/9​117551818/

There are several other ways, but if you're comfortable with lightpainting, then I'd suggest that you stick with that.
Without seeing the location that he wants to use, I'd shoot at sunset to get the natural highlights in the body, & then shoot after dark to get the background & put the two together.
Good luck!

Looking at the quality of your light painting, I wouldn't say you are too far out of your depth at all.

I am guessing that you know how to use photoshop or GIMP etc. (If however, you have managed to pull off that photo in one frame then consider me amazed!).
For the promo shoot, there are two ways you could pull it off, one probably with more PP than the other.

The way I would approach it personally:
Nail the light painting of your car in how ever many shot you need, and now we can start worrying about the model. Make sure your camera is in the same spot, but adjust the exposure time to 1second or faster (ideally a bit of ambient could help, but depends how competent you are lighting a model from scratch). Now you can shoot for the model (getting the softbox in nice and close), and not worry about how it is reflecting in the paintwork.

In post, you can then mask in the model, and any reflections/shadows that she creates on the car. I would probably add some slight flare (or a hint of a light source) coming from an appropriate edge of the frame that would match the direction of light on the model, in order to help sell the composite.

Hope this helps. Goodluck!

ben_p wrote in post #16740270
Looking at the quality of your light painting, I wouldn't say you are too far out of your depth at all.

I am guessing that you know how to use photoshop or GIMP etc. (If however, you have managed to pull off that photo in one frame then consider me amazed!).
For the promo shoot, there are two ways you could pull it off, one probably with more PP than the other.

The way I would approach it personally:
Nail the light painting of your car in how ever many shot you need, and now we can start worrying about the model. Make sure your camera is in the same spot, but adjust the exposure time to 1second or faster (ideally a bit of ambient could help, but depends how competent you are lighting a model from scratch). Now you can shoot for the model (getting the softbox in nice and close), and not worry about how it is reflecting in the paintwork.

In post, you can then mask in the model, and any reflections/shadows that she creates on the car. I would probably add some slight flare (or a hint of a light source) coming from an appropriate edge of the frame that would match the direction of light on the model, in order to help sell the composite.

Hope this helps. Goodluck!

Thanks for the tips! I'm fairly comfortable light painting the car, my main concern was trying to get the composite to look natural. I will have to do some research on creating realistic flares/light sources as this hasn't been something I've done previously.

I'm using Photoshop CS5 and can work my way around layers and layer masks fairly well. Along with the cloning and spot healing associated with doing rig shots.

The client has said that this will be something he wants framing on his wall, so my next focus is going to be trying to ensure that the model looks classy, and keeps the focus on the car. Unfortunately the client is supplying the model so I have no idea on what she will be wearing, experience level, or anything so this is probably the biggest grey area.

You can lightpaint a model! Dave Black does this a lot. She just has to understand she needs to be very very still for ~15 seconds. You can get an incredible shot this way!

For the light sources, here is a decent tutorial. Just remember not to go over the top with it!

Definitely come prepared with a few poses to show the model in case she isn't experienced.
I look forward to seeing the results or any testing along the way...

Just strobe her in after you've finished with the car. Take note of where you want your light/shadows to fall on the car so you can match on her.

Also, shoot her with minimal hard shadows, you can dodge/burn to add in the extra shape later on. Not best practice, but you'll have your options open and won't have to reshoot. As you do it a few more times you'll work out a solid workflow

As long as you colour match your exposures, you'll get away just fine with light painting and later exposing your model.

A while ago I did something similar. Owner of a bike wanted a shot with his girlfriend on the bike. Getting both exposed turned out to be impossible, so I did the bike first, then set up a big soft box right of camera with a kicker left and a speedlite in the background. Blended them in post.