Better then spoiled milk!

Ok so I know this post is going up super late and I am sorry just been busy and time got away from me! So I know those of you who follow my facebook are expecting a fireworks post but I think I am going to save that for closer to new years so you can get your own amazing shots! So that being said I am going to talk about the amazing session that I had this weekend with the most amazing model ever!

So the best I can describe this shoot is basically we played in colored milk all day! Well we started with water but I am getting ahead of myself! So setup is the most important part of this because it can get MESSY! So this picture of the setup is after because I was too lame to get one before but you can see the mess it can make!

 

So for the setup we put the backdrop as far from the splash zone as possible. For the splash zone we had the bars for a backdrop set up and attached a painters drop cloth to it. This was to catch any extra spillage that didn’t immediately drop down into the little pool we had. As an added security we taped one of the drop cloths to the other to make it longer and extend into the pool so we could easily poor the liquid out.

For the lighting we had one strobe to the right of us and one strobe behind the model off to the left of us to catch the liquid. The camera was set at 1/250 shutter, 250 ISO and 13 f-stop which for me this is a usual “studio” setting.

Next was the fun part, so this shoot is only successfully able to be pulled off with a minimum of 3 people (a photographer, an assistant and a model). So to start this shoot we started with water because as weird as this sounds it’s not the easiest thing to throw liquid at somebody and make it land where you need it to. So we started with water to test our skills. We got fun and creative with the water because we didn’t have to worry about running out of it! We switched places so we could each get pictures and get the timing down because that can be tricky too! Everyone is different but the best way to be ready is have the photographer count down so that when the water is thrown the photographer is ready.

Next we moved on to the colored milk. For this we used a gallon of whole milk, a big thing of plain yogurt (for thickness) and dye. Mix all of these into a bucket with a mixer so that it is a nice smooth mixture. Then came the fun part, throwing the mixture on to your model. It was SUPER cold and she was definitely not expecting that but she was a trooper and continued getting pelted with freezing cold milk mixture.

We switched it up at the end, I was shooting the pink mixture and my super amazing photog friend Everett (who I posted about last week) was shooting the purple mixture. So we each had turns in the water round to get our aim right and then continued on to the milk mixture. After all was said and done we were ready for cleanup and our model wanted to take pictures of us in her position. We were a bit hesitant but we obliged because you shouldn’t make your model do what you wouldn’t. It was quite fun but in the end we ended up smelling like soiled milk which is why wherever you do it you need to make sure cleanup is easy. We were in Everett’s garage so we were able to mop everything up and spray it down with the hose. All in all it was a super fun shoot and I definitely want to be able to do it again with different colors!

Here are some other shots from this shoot! I'm just in love our model was amazing and was up for anything! The water portion of this shoot has inspired me to start a series of elemental shots so those will hopefully be on the way I have plans for fire, air and earth basing most of the posing off of Avatar the Last Airbender (because I'm a nerd and that;s how the idea came up).