Graffinis Swimwear PhotoShoot - Strobist Style

Graffinis Spec PhotoShoot, originally uploaded by Csabastyle - Csaba Fikker Photography.

Interesting day I had today. Started the day early - at 4;30 am - met up with the crew in Hollywood at 6am to shoot a swimwear designed by Graffinis. I was supposed to shoot this at dawn on Hollywood Blvd. We originally intended to have the Hollywood Stars and a couple of Palm trees in the Background. The cops were circling around us like sharks, so not having a permit made me nervous enough that I could only snap a couple of photos of the model half naked freezing while drivers were yelling comments. Not wanting to risk my equipment ( In LA they take your Equipment if you have no photo permit and they catch you shooting - and the City being bankrupt and all its probably not helping) we desided to go down to the Santa Monica Beach under the Boardwalk.
It was a great Idea, I like how the images turned out, it was one of those rare days when there was no haze - Amazing!

I ended up using a Canon 580EXII as my main light - attached to the Canon 5DMKII with a cord and I used a Canon 550EX as a secondary flash. I always shoot in full manual mode the flashes I have left on ETTL. I came home with some 500 images from which I think there are a couple dozen that I'm proud of. I processed the images in Lightroom 3.0 - lately i have a tendency to develop a color scheme for each shoot and sometimes I use some of the old saved ones, at this point I have a long list of my own presets but from my experience you rarely have a chance to use the best setting on the new photos - probably because each shoot has its own look and feel.
- more photos from this photo shoot can be found at
http://www.igotsnapped.com/People-Photos-by-Csaba-Fikker/Graffinis-PhotoShoot-Oct-28th