This was my second time working with model Nicola West, who is an absolute pleasure. I set out to achieve two things with this shoot, put the Godox AD600 through it's paces and take multiple shots of a flowing dress to achieve the blowing in the wind look via photo stacking and blending!
Firstly, the strobe. It does exactly what it says on the tin. With 600 watts of power running off of a rechargeable battery it can technically, overpower the midday sun. With the strobe placed off to the right, above and pointing down at a 45 degree angle I first took a test shot with the strobe off to get the exposure for the background how I envisioned (slightly darker than the model). I then introduced the strobe, toggling through the power settings one step at a time using the wireless Godox Xpro hot shoe trigger until the balance felt perfect. The power adjustment on the trigger is simple to adjust and the temperature of the strobe seems well balanced. For it's first use, it did everything I could ask from it without any hiccups.
Dress Stacking Technique
Firstly, frame your shot with the camera on a tripod. You then take multiple shots flowing/throwing just the dress around in the air (See picture below). It’s best to use some kind of marker on the floor to align the model at part 2 (I placed a lens cap at the foot of Nicola, to keep the consistent location).
Make sure the lighting on the red dress is consistent by keeping the Godox strobe in the same place and by using the same lighting power for each shot.
Part 2
The model (in this case Nicola) then puts on the dress and strikes a rather lovely pose. After a few takes it’s ready for Lightroom and Photoshop.
Open the main photo of the model with the flapping dress shots placed as additional layers on top. Select and mask the layers of just the dress flowing and move/rotate them into a suitable position to blend with the model shot. Using a layer mask, paint and blend with a soft edge brush. Remember, white reveals, black conceals.
Once you are satisfied with the look of the dress, copy them all to a single merged layer and warp the dress if needed with the liquify tool for extra dress flow. now copy and merge the dress layer with the model layer and apply final colour grading, skin retouching and so on.
Below are a few more single shots from the photoshoot.
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