A Moment Caught: Shooting a couple of models

Last week I had the chance to shoot a couple of models. One model just turned 40 years old, the other just shy of 40 by a few months. While you can tell they're not teenagers to look at them, you'd likely never guess that they were 40 years old. They were both all too happy to pose for me. It was an interesting shoot.

Meet the models, Maytag HA806A and HDE806. This is the old washer and dryer that came with our house. They've served us well for the past 5 years. Recently the switch on the washer lid broke. This is a small deal to fix once you get the part. However we've been finding these old machines too small, so we decided to upgrade.

Before parting with these old machines though, I decided to have a photo shoot. I had been meaning to try an exercise that I read about years ago. Find inanimate objects, not too exciting (i.e. not a Ferarri) and try to make them look interesting through various photos. This includes choice of lenses, film/medium, angles, backdrops, lighting, etc.

For this shoot, I opted for shooting the D90 in black & white mode. I thought it would tell some nice tales on these old Maytags. I chose my Sigma 10-20mm, Nikkor 50mm, and Nikkor 60mm lenses to shoot with (although I was tempted to deviate, I did stick with my original choices). The Sigma proved awesome for getting in the machines and some interesting exterior shots. The 60mm gave the greatest number of interesting shots with its close-ups.

The 50mm was a bit of a let-down. I didn't want to shoot it wide open since I wanted a deeper depth-of-field. This meant that I needed to stabilize my arms on top of the machine with the resulting slower shutter speed. With my elbows on the machine, the 50mm couldn't focus close enough most of the time for the shots I wanted. The result was that I barely touched the 50mm.

I also decided to shoot all existing light (overhead fluorescents) with the SB-800 available for some lighting of the machine interiors.

Here's some samples of what I shot.