A little earlier this year, during the summer, I had an idea for a portrait I wanted to try shooting. I had only ever used a slow shutter speed for a landscape, but wanted to try incorporating it into a portrait. I wanted the environment to show movement, but maintain sharpness and clarity of the subject. The easiest way to do this was to have her lying down so she could remain perfectly still, while the water moved around her. I love the softness of the water that is created with the effect of the slower shutter speed. To be able to shoot this while the sun was still up and not have to shoot at f/22, I used a neutral density filter so I was able to decrease the amount of light coming through the lens and be able to slow down the shutter speed more. I used two lights in this set up, which also helped freeze any little movement of the model, but because it was still light out, she still had to stay as motionless as possible so as not to create a ghosting effect. Overall, I’m really happy with how this turned out and had a lot of fun experimenting!

A big thank you to our model, Dominique, for being a trooper and braving the cold waters. It wasn’t that warm once the sun started to go down, and she was soaking wet and half in the water, but she did so great!

Here’s a few other shots we did while waiting for the sun to get a little lower…

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