Studio Ball Pit Session

I was recently approached by a fantastic stylist to work on a project she had in mind. We have spoken on numerous occasions, to collaborate, but this was the first time all the cards lined up. She and I usually have very similar visions in mind so I was really looking forward to it. More so when she sent me her storyboard with the idea of doing a studio ball pit.

Now, there are several things that made this a tricky undertaking. First, obviously, is space. A lot of space is needed to get plastic inflatable tub that’s large enough for a tall adult to recline in, set up. Luckily, my home studio space had the perfect amount of room. Next is photographing from directly above. That takes special stands to hold the camera, as well as the set-up to do a tethered shoot, which basically just means that everything with my camera is controlled by laptop instead of manually adjusting by hand. This is where a lot of studios fall off because not very many photographers use gear like this. With my years of product photography, I did have everything that we needed to get the job done.

I can’t discount that one of the hardest parts of any photo session is what comes next…culling the images. For this session (which included 6 separate looks and photographic sets, in total), we captured several hundred images and had to narrow it down to just 8. That is really not an easy thing to do! With several of us looking them over, it did speed things up a lot but, still, it was almost 3 hours just to narrow it down to the 8 to be edited. This is a normal dilemma for any photographer, though, no matter the genre or subject matter! Sometimes there can only be one single image!

The editing was the next part. I started this image at 9:30 this morning. I just finished up at 2:00pm. That means that I spent 4 1/2 hours in editing just this one image. As far as fashion editing goes, that isn’t too terrible. I have had images that were over 10 hours in editing.

Anyway, I do feel it was worth it and love the image. I hope you do, as well! I’m posting a before and an after, for comparison.