Portrait of Misty, on Location

A portrait of Essex, Ontario’s Misty Renaud at the Essex Train Station.

Portrait Photography

Portrait photography is the genre of my craft that I have practiced most. I began learning how to light people in 2003 after purchasing the first Canon “Digital Rebel” (the Canon 300D) and began working with my lovely wife Sharon. I am still learning new ways to light and capture everyday. I progressed to working with local models and have been active in model portrait photography since 2008, working with local models of all types. Being able to work well with models is especially useful when I want to try new photography or lighting techniques. Most times we get together to update our portfolios, which show samples of what we can produce in our respective roles as photographer and model. Misty Renaud is the spotlight of today’s blog post and this was a case of “we haven’t worked together in  a while. We need to shoot something!” Commercial photography is one of those industries where you have to stay fresh and constantly produce good output if you want to survive commercially, so I shoot portfolio photography work as often as possible.

The Plan

Misty and I set up a date to shoot some new portraits a couple of weeks later. When the day arrived, I was unsure what I was going to capture as not only had I not ever been to the locations before but also because my trusty location pack was not available for the shoot due to a small calamity involving water (see previous blog post). The plan for the day was to use only available light, which typically requires a lot more work to achieve the same style I am used to producing. When you shoot with only sunlight as the only available light source, you have two choices: work with it as is or modify it somehow.  Since I didn’t plan on bringing a assistant to function as a human light stand and didn’t want to use a small flash, I resolved myself to the fact that I was going to have work with what I was given.

The Equipment

I packed up my camera bag with everything that I use for location photography, including my Canon 5D Mark II, a couple of Yongnuo manual flashes, remote triggers and light stands “just in case.” and left to meet Misty at her house. It couldn’t have been a better day! Lots of cloud cover which meant I was going to have nice diffused skylight for most of the session. It also helped that Misty chose locations that gave me some of the best open shade I have ever worked with.

The Shoot

We spent a few hours shooting at Essex Train Station and Sadler’s Pond, near the Chrysler Canada Greenway in the town of Essex, Ontario. I was very happy with everything that we shot. The images around Sadler’s Pond required a little bit of fill light, using my Yongnuo flash and a small 3 foot Alien Bees octabox that I converted for use with small flash. The rest was shot with available sunlight/daylight.

The Images

Below is a selection of images from the shoot.

Thanks for checking out the blog today!
If you are interested in contacting Misty about her modeling services, you can reach her through her Facebook Page Play Misty for Me.
My Facebook page can be found here. Contact us if you would like to hire me to do photography work for you.

Until next time..

– Ray