My Favorite Swimsuit Images and Why

 When I woke up this morning, I had a blog topic in mind, my favorite swimsuit image and I was gonna tell you why I liked it. Well, I been lucky enough to photograph some of the most beautiful models in Central Florida on the beach. As a photographer for Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine, I've probably shot more swimsuit than anything else and I couldn't narrow it down to just one. These two images stand out in my mind above all others and here's why. 

 In this image, I was supposed to meet Katherine for a surfing photography session. I love shooting surfing. As it worked out, there was hardly any surf and it just wasn't gonna happen. To not waste a trip for either of us, I asked her if she would like to shoot some under the Cocoa Beach Pier. The pier shaded us from the harsh sun on the beach and provided me the ability to be more creative. I placed a Nikon SB800 flash with a full CTO gell on it behind a shoot through umbrella camera right and there you have it. The CTO gell gave Katherine a warm look on her brown skin and my aperture setting or f4.5 made everything but her upper body go slightly out of focus giving the image depth.

This image required a lot more thought and a lot more flash. I scouted this location the day before and I made note of what time the sun would be right where I wanted it.  The next day, I had Krista Jean, the model, arrive 30 minutes early,and positioned her on the rocks. A small speedlight would not do the job here so I brought along my AlienBees B800 and a beauty dish. I like the beauty dish on the beach for two reasons, it doesn't catch much wind, one sand bag is usually all that's needed to keep it from tipping over. Also I don't loose much flash power when using it. When you shoot into the rising sun, you need all the flash power you can get. Here my aperture is set at f18 and everything is in sharp focus. You can even see two shrimp boats on the horizon. 

Summer time is coming. If you would like some swimsuit images like these, drop me a line. 

How'd I do That?

 I took this photograph of Cassy Cameron about 90 minutes before Sunset.  It was submitted to, and published by Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine. So what made this image stand out to the editor?  See the sun peeking over the sea oats? Normally, Cassy would be a dark silhouette in this image. I could have exposed the image for a blue sky. My exposure  probably would have been around 1/200 sec. f/16 at ISO 200. I probably would have set my AlienBees B800 at about 1/4 power and it would have looked pretty good. I didn't want it to look pretty good. I wanted it to look DRAMATIC. I wanted the editor to look at it and say "Dang, that looks different." So how did I do it? I set my aperture to f/22 and my shutter speed to 1/250 sec. That made the beautiful afternoon sky go pretty dark. Now I had to pump a lot of power out of my AlienBees B800 flash to expose her properly, but that was OK, I knew it would do it shooting through a Beauty Dish. It wouldn't do it through an umbrella. I digress, but I know this because I set my flash up in my living room one rainy day and metered what it would do from a distance of six feet, shooting through each of my light modifiers. Now I don't have to waste time on location figuring out what my equipment will do. Anyhow, that's how I did it, and the important thing is it made the cut and it got published. If you don't understand all these terms and fractions, that's OK, I didn't at first either. I am completely self taught and I did it by reading, watching tutorials on You Tube and experimenting. Here are a couple more images from that shoot for your viewing pleasure. They made the cut too and were published. The one with her laying on the sand with the bird in the water was taken using the exact same technique. Enjoy!

My Latest Swimsuit Shoot for Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine!

The first time Ambar and I tried to shoot for Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine, we had some bad weather roll in. We cut our shoot short, say that three times fast, and decided to reschedule sometime in the future.  Well it took a couple of months, but we finally did it. Some of these images were taken with natural light. I did however drag along my trusty AlienBees B800 and a beauty dish. That combo gets more beach time than a lifeguard.  I hope you enjoy the images below.