Portrait Photography Session – Shego from Kim Possible
I went to Worcester, about thirty miles west of Boston, this past Saturday, to meet with Ashley for a portrait session she had in mind. Not gonna lie, it was a cold day.
Massachusetts is under a COVID-19 stay-at-home advisory between 10pm-5am for most people, so the timing was a little challenging. We scheduled the shoot early enough to have day light available to set up equipment and have plenty of time available for photography, and late enough that we would not be fighting with bright sunlight or waiting too long for darkness to happen, in case we had some flow toys to incorporate.
Ashley did bring an LED light-whip; however, conditions were not fully conducive to effective long exposure photography.
In order to simulate darker conditions, I decided to work with lower ISO, a shutter speed around 1/200″ and f-stops between 4.0 and 5.6, while using a speedlight for keylighting. Also, taking into account some fan-art of Shego using a greenish outline to her hair against black backgrounds, I used the mobility and hands-free operation of the RTMS2000 with a second speedlight with a green gel to provide hair lighting. You can see the full effect of those settings in the photo gallery below.
Once we got started, the portrait photography session went surprisingly quickly and we were able to maintain strict distance with COVID-19 protocols in mind. There were a couple of occasions where I had to lower my mask due to my camera’s eyepiece fogging up a little, as needed, but it was only a temporary measure. By the time we packed up, what felt like three to four hours of photography ended up being about two hours and I was able to maintain consistency across images due to simulating darkness through in-camera settings.
Cosplay portrait photography is something I don’t do all that often, but I am glad for the opportunity to exercise some creative muscles after a fairly sizable drought, due to the every worsening COVID-19 pandemic, here in the United States. As always, I am happy to be around people who take precautions seriously, and are willing to take the extra little steps necessary to watch out for each other.
Thank you to Ashley and the RTMS2000, without whom this portrait photoshoot could not have happened!
Shego Cosplay Photo Gallery With Ashley
