This week I worked with Cord – a model who contacted me through Model Mayhem – to add some shots to his portfolio.

Cord is the first model that I’ve shot with from that site, so I was a bit nervous at first.  I was nervous about being fully prepared, and being able to deliver quality images that he was likely anticipating based on the images I have shown in my profile.
We had decided to meet in a park that I had never been to before, and once I got there, it didn’t help to calm my nervous energy.  The park wasn’t what I had in mind and I was really struggling to find an area with a decent background to shoot at.
Luckily I found some very large concrete wells in the back part of the park that provided a simple background to work with.  In addition to not being very busy and distracting, they provided an excellent grungy and textured look that complimented a few of the items in his wardrobe really well.

Lighting Info

The lighting on this shot was from a single Alien Bee B800 from high camera right with a grid on it to tightly contain the light to only his face.  The hard light from a gridded light source was perfect in this situation.  It created a raw / edgy feel which matched perfectly with this shirt, pose, and the background.  A gridded light source is also pretty unforgiving with its placement.  Upon further inspection, it appears that it might have been a bit low and pointed more at his neck.
I shot at my maximum sync speed of 1/250th to underexpose the ambient light as much as possible.  This also helps to create that darker look and feel to the image.

Final Thoughts

Working with Cord was a lot of fun.  He was really easy going with an energetic and enthusiastic personality.  He was truly there to create great images, instead of just showing up to have some photographer take some photos of him.  He would regularly make suggestions for the shoot, which was wonderful because it helped to take some of the pressure off of me, and it was just nice to be able to share ideas.

Overall I’m very happy with how this photo turned out, as well as the other photos from the shoot.  Here’s a link to all the photos from my shoot with Cord.