Finding great locations to shoot stock images in can be a bit of work, but my latest location is one that is literally right-next-door. It took place in Crystal Nails, the nail salon in the same shopping center where my studio space is located.

My goal for the shoot was to create a series of images featuring an attractive young woman getting a manicure and pedicure treatment from the salon attendants. Big props go out to Kati for modeling. Due to a last minute scheduling conflict, the model I had originally planned to use couldn’t do the shoot and after reading about this on my Facebook feed Kati offered to step in. Kati is an outstanding photographer in her own right, so in addition to being a great model she understood what I was working to create on the other side of the camera. This was extremely helpful.

Nail Salon Shoot - Behind the Scenes

For anyone that has seen me work on location, the lighting setup would look very familiar. I worked with three softboxes of varying sizes and positioned them to create the soft natural-looking lighting that has come to be pretty standard in my work. I usually know in my mind ahead of each shot what I want the lighting to look like, and move the boxes until I am able to achieve this.

Working with us on the shoot was a photographer friend of mine, Nathan Sweet. He is on break this week from his college classes and offered to assist on the shoot. I’ve got to say it was nice having him there. Working with a photographer assistant is something I could easily get used to.

Nail Salon - Sample

I have just begin selecting the images from the shoot to include in my stock portfolio, so I’ve got a couple days worth of editing/uploading/keywording ahead of me. I’m excited to see how the series does.

p.s. In addition to Kati and Nathan, huge props go out to Crystal Nails and their technicians Linda and Tony for helping out with the shoot.

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