If you haven’t yet seen about my Muse project, read this first.

I had been developing my concept for my project for my last two years at The Art Institute of San Antonio, and I’m glad that I made it in the timeline that I did. Over my time at school, I’ve developed my own personal style and approach to portrait and product photography and that’s how I’ve found that technique I used for this project.

For my setup, I used two clamps to attach a colored poster board to a large reflector board I had access to at school, and positioned two large soft boxes to face the model.

Tip: pushing the poster board closer to the model/softboxes makes the poster more vibrant, and pushing it back and reducing the amount of light that falls on it makes the color darker. Below, I used the same poster for Alieya (left) and Shanti (right), but the board position is what dramatically changed the tone of the color.  

Note: I know this is a LBLP blog, but I will let y’all know up from that the backdrops are what qualifies this for Little Budget, nothing about my student loans or the equipment I had access to because of them were cheap, but I’ll go into how to create a similar style, using more economical equipment in a later blog.

Here are some more behind the scenes images of my makeup artists getting ready for the project!

About the Photographer:

Elizabeth Leland is a graduate from The Art Institute of San Antonio where she earned her BFA in digital photography. After picking up a camera in 2007, Elizabeth developed a love for interacting with people and making genuine connections through the lens. Elizabeth continued to grow in photography and took every opportunity she could to learn from small business owners, other photographers, and teachers. 

She finds her inspiration in color, texture, humor, and captivating stories. Her work includes commercial marketing and advertising, events, and portraits.