One of the most astonishing things about
modern digital cameras is that they can almost see in the dark. They can certainly take stunning photos using only the most
unpromisingly dim practical lights - in this case an ornament which is a 3D printed digital moon globe complete with
differing thickness plastic to give an actual lunar image on the light's surface. Even at ISO 1600 the shots were underexposed
on Ariel's skin, but I knew I had to do that to keep enough highlight detail to see the moon as a moon, rather than just
a burned out white globe.
We added the smooth metal cuffs and jewelled collar to sparkle and pick up the light of the moon, and oiled Ariel up (it's
a hard life) to further get specular highlights on her skin to pick out shape and form, not so easy when your single light source is
a dim practical like this. Ariel then did a great job posing and positioning and modelling to her own key light. We tried quite
a few different things- I like the ones where I put in an LED light tree in the background, out of focus, to be a constellation of stars.
The coloured light option from the LED globe was too much - I think those needed some delicate white fill to present some natural
colours as well as the intense pure colour.