I had a full afternoon of shooting planned with this lovely model, who had taken part in my weekend workshop in NYC. I had a shot planned of her emerging from a taxi in front of one of the iconic hotels, wearing just a wide brim hat, pearls and a clutch handbag.
Jacquii brought along a bunch of ‘upper class’ lady themed accessories, but the only hat we had to use was a smaller one, which I felt would be lost in the large shot I had planned, soI improvised.
We hailed a cab at Central Park to take us into Times Square. As we jumped in we asked the taxi driver if he minded we take some flash photos as he drove. As soon as we got the OK, Jacquii stripped off and as we had planned, began to touch up her make up with the compact mirror.
I squeezed myself against the far window, and shot with a 15mm prime ultra wide angle lens to get all of her in shot. I used on camera flash, bounced from behind and above myself, with the diffuser down as it was already close to the ceiling of the cab!
I shot this at 1/20th of a second to get enough movement in the background as the cab drove through the, and f8 to minimise the ambient inside the cab – so I could effectively freeze Jacquii still with my flash. I set the flash power manually to expose her and balance the outside ambient light. 10 minutes of shooting, and we stepped out at Times Square, job done.