Last week, my favorite person in the world let me use her as my model for some fun lake-inspired shots. My baby sister was kind enough to let me drag her to the lake we spent every summer of our childhood to get some experimental portraits.
We were able to get some super cute shots in the water (bless her for humoring me and climbing in!) with a whole series dedicated to what I considered to be a reflection of Samantha’s inner beauty. No pun intended of course!
These super sweet portraits of her laughing and smiling captures exactly what I see when she and I are reunited. Her infectious smile and laughter are the only reason I continue to tease her relentlessly as we both near the end of our 20s. But I mean, c’mon, isn’t that what big sisters are for??
Samantha, being the absolute trooper that she is, even let me boss her around long enough to get some fine-art-style shots. Her and our mom have matching wrist tattoos (I have one that’s similar but not identical) so I wanted to incorporate the wrist-ink in the shots as well as depict the depth and moodiness of the dark and murky water.
The holy grail of our lake visit was the fine art portrait I was able to capture using a combination of lighting methods I learned while I was in my undergraduate program at the Art Institutes. As you saw in the previous images, the lake was a murky brown color and we were shooting as the sun was setting behind the tree-line.
For this shot, I was able to change the white balance on my camera and use a fill-light with a color filter to neutralize the light on her front. The blue backlight you can see on the right side of her face and outer arm is actually the brightness of the fading sun, set to a cool-colored white balance. Mix in a little magic in post-production and VOILA! A portrait worthy of a front page magazine cover!
Thank you again to my baby sis for letting me boss you around and make you do uncomfortable things for the sake of my photography passion. YOU THE REAL MVP!
– Sarah
