This was probably the most fun I’ve had on a shoot, for quite a while 🙂
Emma is a long term friend, although I do wonder why she puts up with me when I subject her to such treatment as this. Yes, that’s milk. Lots of it!
The lights used for this were the new SuperFast heads. The action stopping 1/20,000th sec flash duration is absolutely ideal for freezing fast moving objects, and thrown milk is certainly fast. Off t0 the left and behind Emma, was a SuperFast 600 firing at 1/32nd power output, coupled to a gridded 40cm white beauty dish. This provided the accent lighting seen along Emma’s neck and shoulder, and of course the back of her head.
The main light was another SuperFast 600 at 1/32nd power, firing through a gridded 70cm white beauty dish on a stand that was barely camera left at a height of seven feet and angled down towards Emma.
Nikon D3 1/160th sec ISO800 24-70mm Nikkor f9
One of the big bonuses with the SuperFast heads, is the fact the recycle time gets incredibly short as the power is turned down. In fact, ridiculously so! 1/20th of a second, which quite frankly, is insane!
So, if the heads recycle at 1/20th of a second, then I can get twenty shots per second. Seeing as the D3 can fire off 9 frames a second, the simple solution to ensure we managed to catch the right moment, would be to shoot continuously. So that’s what I did.
The big splash!
This is where the light camera right comes into its own. The parts of the thrown milk that are spread thinly, show up quite nicely where the light is illuminating the thin veneer of the liquid. Because the reflector was gridded, you’ll notice the best effect is near Emma’s face, whereas the milk that has just left the vessel, (frame right), doesn’t really benefit from the accent light. It appears far more solid.
Nikon D3 1/160th sec ISO800 24-70mm Nikkor f9
Wayne was a little enthusiastic with his throwing. Well, just a bit 🙂
The bulk of the milk went over Emma’s shoulder and landed on the floor. A large portion of the milk that hit Emma, bounced off and decorated my camera. Nice!
The blobs of milk that are out of focus in the above image? Yep, they’re about to hit the camera.
Nikon D3 1/160th sec ISO800 24-70mm Nikkor f9
Model : Emma Jenkins who can be found here and here
Makeup : Daniella Jepson, who can be found here
Assistant and Chief Chucker : Wayne Myers, who can be found here
Thanks to Garry Edwards, who dragged the heads over from Bradford for the shoot. Garry also has a more technical blog entry regarding the SuperFast heads here.
