Mere - San Luis Obispo, CA, 2021
I head to San Luis Obispo to photograph Mere one last time before she leaves California
My setup: Nikon Z6, 85mm F1.8S, Godox AD400 Pro, 38” Octobox
The Central Coast is California’s best kept secret. It’s home to Laguna Seca, Pebble Beach, Hearst Castle, Morro Bay, Wine Country, and Santa Barbara Pier. But on this particular fall weekend, I found myself in San Luis Obispo. Mere finally agreed to do one last photo-shoot here, after several years of begging her.
The first time Mere and I spent time in San Luis Obispo, we knew that a photo-shoot there was inevitable. The hard part was deciding on the best season to do it. However with our work and personal lives, the months and years kept passing by. We never forgot, and eventually decided that a fall theme would be the best. With this in mind, I found an oak grove which many local photographers recommended, and Mere put together some great outfits for the two locations we chose.
My visit here served another purpose though: to say goodbye to Mere before she leaves California on her next adventure. We both moved to the area at around the same time, and was the closest friend I made while we were here. From our almost daily “luncheons“, practicing the saxophone at her house, popping into each other’s cubicles at work, subtly roasting each other in every conversation, and all the other memories in between, she is the reason why I reflect on my time in the Central Coast so fondly. Not only that, but she was also the one who inspired me to get into portrait photography and improve with each shoot. In a lot of ways, Mere was my muse. All this to say that this was one shoot I was motivated work hard on, and I hope the effort showed.
Along with us were two dear friends, Nick and Anissa, assisting us in the shoot, and it can’t be overstated how important their roles are. Nick was in charge of stabilizing and directing the strobe to the subject. A couple of weeks prior to this, my first strobe was blown over. Destroyed. I was not about to lose this one to the same fate. Additionally, we were shooting on top of uneven ground, roots, and leaves, so having a person support the strobe became even more crucial. There were also a few compositions that were impossible to get efficiently without someone hand-holding it. Anissa was my director and helped me pose Mere. This is a part of portrait photography that I need to improve on, so having her there come with creative ideas was a godsend as we shot throughout the afternoon.
The oak grove had filtered sunlight through the canopy. The sun was still bright enough to be an effective back light to my subject. I set my camera to expose for the background, brought Mere into the frame, and then adjusted the strobe to act as a fill light. This is the method I always use when shooting portraits outside.
By the time we shot the second scene, the sun had already gone down, and the strobe would act as the only source of light. We were shooting in a Gazebo downtown, which was the landmark that first inspired Mere and I to shoot in SLO. This made having both a powerful strobe and a person to hold it even more important, as we wouldn’t be able to position a strobe in the correct spots.
Overall this is my favorite shoot of 2021, and I’m extremely proud of how it turned out.
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