Fashion with Reflectors: Sportowa Dolina (DSD) and More

I do my photoshoots using flash exclusively. When I organize an outdoor shoot, I switch off the sun and make my own with lights. This time, even though I had a 600 and 1200 Ws outdoor studio kit, I decided to shoot using available light only.

I had taken very few photos that year and decided it was time to change that. I knew I did not want to do yet another beauty shoot, but finally shoot fashion instead. I also knew who I wanted to work with, but had no idea where. Finding locations for photoshoots had always been a huge problem for me. We did not actually know where this one would take place until the day of the shoot. The first idea was to shoot on a cool rooftop, but try finding a good-looking roof in my area... Then the option of shooting with sand in the background came up.

Preparing for the shoot

The day before the shoot, I went to the place where I made my previous photoshoot (inspired by "The Walking Dead"). Unfortunately, the piles of sand that had been there just two months earlier looked like heaps of mud, and that was the end of the desert atmosphere. Two people I happened to meet there recommended Sportowa Dolina in Bytom, a place that had already come up quite often among the suggestions.

The model was Klaudia Danch. First she visited Karolina Zientek, who did the makeup. Then she went to Aga at Le’Prestige for her hair. I joined them there with Mateusz "Pro" Prociak, and we decided to do the shoot on the dolomite site, at Sportowa Dolina in Bytom. Clay used to be mined in this area. It is a fairly pleasant-looking place and just right for photos. The backstage shots managed to capture it.

The shooting location

It was 30°C or more, with full sun and only the occasional cloud. Between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., the conditions were theoretically hopeless for taking photos. But not if you use reflectors in addition to sunlight. Why reflectors rather than flash? Because it would have been difficult to set up lighting there without something falling off something else. This time I simply had no need to overpower the available light and create my own atmosphere, so reflectors gave me similar results while saving a lot of time and energy.

Available light alone did not work, partly because I often shot somewhat into the sun. That made the person look like a black blob. Besides, almost every photo looks better with a reflector than without one. We used two, measuring 180 x 120 cm and 107 cm (round). The first lit the whole person, while the other lit only the face. We used them in different ways, sometimes one reflector and sometimes two. When we used both, the larger one rested against a stand.

Photos from Sportowa Dolina

For the first shot I used only the larger reflector with its silver surface. It had to serve as the main light, and the white surface was far too weak for that.

Nikon D700 | Sigma 50mm 1,4 EX DG HSM | F/4,5 | 1/1250 | ISO 200

The sun was on the left. It lit the background and served as a rim light. I placed Klaudia much higher than me and framed the shot so that only the sky appeared in the background, without the trees, which looked more like bushes from there...

Another shot and another place, this time with a more varied background. When shooting in such strong sunlight, there is no need to be afraid of reflecting light from below. The sun shines very strongly from above, and a reflector will not make the shadows move from bottom to top. If that does happen, it means the reflector is too close, but you will probably also see it in a completely blown-out face.

Nikon D700 | Sigma 50mm 1,4 EX DG HSM | F/3,5 | 1/3200 | ISO 200

The sun was very high behind my back. The reflectors filled the shadows cast by the hair, eyelashes, etc.

The same was true for the vertical frame. The camera settings are slightly different to give me more depth of field.

Nikon D700 | Sigma 50mm 1,4 EX DG HSM | F/5,6 | 1/1600 | ISO 200

End of outdoor shoot no. 1

After finishing the shoot at DSD, it was time for lunch at McDonald's and a "brainstorm" about the location for the next photos. They probably would not have let us onto the roof of the BP station, the nearby stairs turned out to be a failure, and the roofs of the surrounding tower blocks looked as poor as the prospect of getting onto them. We ended up at a skate park, which I left as quickly as possible despite the model and assistant insisting that perhaps something could come of it. A few dozen meters farther on, we found this...

Second outdoor location

Nikon D700 | Sigma 50mm 1,4 EX DG HSM | 7,1 | 1/1250 | ISO 200

There is no point writing much about the photo above. Most things stayed the same. The sun was behind my back, on the left. This time "Pro" used only the smaller reflector and aimed it at the face while avoiding the clothing. Otherwise the white jacket would have been completely blown out.

Reflectors

Reflectors are worth having in your kit whether you are heading outdoors or into a studio. There is no universal size that can replace all the others. For filling shadows in beauty shots and portraits, a product around 50 cm in diameter works extremely well, while larger ones work much worse. For a shoot like the one described here, however, 56 cm is certainly too small.

The basic requirement is to have a white and a silver reflector, but I definitely recommend paying extra for a 5-in-1, especially for the largest size. As the name suggests, it gives you five reflectors in one: white for filling shadows; silver for outdoor shoots in strong sun; gold for warming colors, for example in winter, or giving black-and-white photos a different character; black as a flag that blocks light or as a background. I use that one for almost every beauty shoot. You can read more about it here. There is also a translucent white surface, which is a diffuser used to soften light. My kit contains two 180 x 120 cm 5-in-1 reflectors, one 107 cm 5-in-1 reflector (I use only the white and occasionally the silver surface). I also have a two-sided round reflector measuring 56 cm (white/silver).

Making your own reflector from an emergency blanket is popular. You can buy one at a pharmacy for about PLN 10. It is silver on one side, gold on the other, and creases terribly. It looks a little like aluminum foil, except it is much stronger. You know those folding mesh sunshades for car windows, attached with rubber suction cups? They are easy to fold. As easy as reflectors... You buy one of those frames, cut out the mesh, and glue the emergency blanket in its place. The result is a foldable reflector that works much like the original ones. I had one and DO NOT recommend it. It is far less durable than an "original" made in China, bends and curls mercilessly in the wind, and its surface is very shiny. Too shiny. Reflectors are cheap, so it is better to pay a little more and have a proper product.

Backstage

Summary

A tiring but successful shoot. We need to do another one while the weather is still good... Reflectors are more convenient to work with than lights because you skip the whole process of setting up and packing away the equipment. Folding a reflector takes a few seconds. Triangular reflectors are supposedly convenient. They have a handle in one corner and can be held comfortably with one hand, even if the other is holding a camera. Do not expect me to abandon lights now, though... Shoots with studio equipment are coming soon.