After prepping for my first shoot last week I was able to get into the studio and make some images. It was a good practice session. I say practice because after looking at my frames in Lightroom I realized that what I'd come up with isn't what I'm looking for.
Let me explain...using some imagery.
Here is a raw, unedited shot from the studio session.
On a small screen or at a glance this looks like a decent place to start but when I looked closer and sized up the retouching nightmare this would be I realized I'd be better off starting with a new shoot. Here's what I mean.
Now it's pretty easy to see the amount of clean up this would need to have a 'studio style' effect. The hours I'd spend cleaning up this image would land me with a bike on clean white-to-grey. I thought about this look and decided that's not what I want for this image.
My new thought is that for my studio bike image, I'll still use studio lighting but in a non-studio location. This allows more room for a 'dirty' or 'grungy' scene (mountain bikes are made for the dirt...rather fitting in my mind) and definitely might lead to a more interesting image by having something for the ground and the background rather than pure white/grey.
To end this post on a more positive note, here is one of the tight angle shots that I do rather fancy (pinky fingers up). The shape of the handle bars becomes organic up close which is conflicting seeing as an aluminum bar has very few innate organic qualities. Enjoy.
Till next week
