Portrait In Sepia

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Whenever I do a photo shoot with a beautiful woman I go soft and easy with the images. I love to use fresh roses for every shoot because I believe they enhance the feminine softness. I believe sexy is more than just boobs and butts. I think that is way overdone in most of the pinup images I see. To me sexy means "desirable", which goes far deeper than just anatomy 101.

I converted this image to sepia using the Imagenomic Realgrain filter. Just google them for more information. I give myself extra control by first creating a layer in Photoshop in order to be able to control opacity and sometimes even the blending mode.


I used my usual 3-light setup for this image.


AlienBee 800 to the left and high thru a white umbrella for my main light


AlienBee 800 also thru a white umbrella, on the right for a fill, set about 2 stops below the main light.


My third light is a Savage CM-250 with a color gel, usually blue. I have it behind my white-sheet background. This lets me change background colors without changing the background.

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When it comes to backgrounds I like to stay simple and subdued because I don't want it competing with the model.


Shooting is manual shutter speed and f-stop, auto focus and auto color balance.


I use Imagenomic Portraiture to get the soft skin tones and finish the image with Image Trends "Pearly Whites" for whiter teeth and eyes.

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