Red Riding Hood Photo Shoots
You probably already know the story of Red Riding Hood, it’s a timeless fairy tale about a girl and a big bad wolf. It’s also a popular subject for photography and something I wanted to take on too.
Traditionally the Red Riding Hood story takes place in the woods but I’m lucky enough to have access to my own studio space and that’s where I started. I also had a can of fake falling snow, which is actually foam and a home made red velvet cape.
For my Red Riding Hood I called upon the services of local model Fern Meave who was amazingly talented and suited the role perfectly. For the lighting I went with my two Streaklights, a small beauty dish and some coloured gels.
Fun as the studio shoot is it’s never going to be the same as shooting on location in the woods. So for the second video that’s exactly what we did.
Weeks of planning went into the shoot but the weather was out of our control and sure enough on the day of the shoot the sky was grey and it was freezing cold. None the less we pressed on with the shoot and in the video I also pass on plenty of tips for balancing flash with low levels of ambient light.
Fern was my model once again but this time I swapped my Streaklights for a more powerful Rovelight which I reviewed a few weeks back. As it turned out I didn’t need the extra power of the Rovelight but that’s the weather for you
Below a few photos from the shoots which you can see in more detail by clicking.
Hi Gavin. I Am from Venezuela! I like a lot your videos.There is something that I don’t understand. If you underexposed by 2 stops the ambiance light, and then you put the same values for the flash, (f4, 1/160) ambient light why it seems that her body and face are 2 stops lighter?
Hi Gavin,
You are my favourite Photographer and it is an honour to try and replicate your image. We had a lot of fun with an off camera flash on a bright sunny day. Not as good as yours but the young lady loves it. Thank you again for all your work.
https://www.facebook.com/StephenMouldPhotography/photos/pcb.825953487478304/825953334144986/?type=1
Wich metering mode did you use in the forrest?
I was wondering the exact same thing. My guess is that he is using matrix metering to underexposed the background rather than spot metering.