Sierra McKenzie for Temperance and Fun! (Patreon)

Quick shoots are sometimes my favorite.  I'd had a rough and pretty busy week, but I found out Sierra was in town, and when somebody I love working with is around, I always am down to shoot something.  We decided to do one look and just try and perfect a couple of images in the Temperance room, and then figured why not shoot in front of the fireplace as well.

Sierra is really amazing in front of the camera, and so even in a brief shoot we created a few images I really really loved for Temperance.  The way we used the three mirrors seemed to just come together perfectly, and then for the first time in almost two years I took a photo in the Temperance room that wasn't through a mirror, and I loved those too.  It was the start of something I played around with until I finished shooting the series (don't panic I still have more to edit and more to post)

Afterwards we ran down stairs, turned on the fire and knocked out a couple more photos.  I love shooting with the fire.  The red carpet in our Philly home, Sierra's red hair, the orange fire photographs so beautifull and red has always been my favorite color.

My trick for shooting in this setting is that I just use the modeling light on my ProFoto heads through a beauty dish.  Trying to use strobes pretty much makes the fire look unlit, and using the incandescent light gives the carpet and a fire a warmer tone.  

It means cranking the ISO up a bit, but I've never been one to shy away from noise.  I remember standing inches away from Helmet Newton prints in Berlin, and seeing how beautifully they fell apart.  Noise reminds me of the history of our medium in film grain.  Its the physical limitations of light and technology.

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