33/52 Emma Hospelhorn

How dorky is it that I'm super excited about my dual-folding Calumet silver-over-white 42" umbrella, especially when paired with a sto-fen to double diffuse? Please don't answer that.

Emma Hospelhorn is a bass player and a classically trained flautist. She has a degree in English from Columbia, a B.M. in Music from Queens College, and is a fellow resident of West Town.  She plays bass in the band Hollows, a Chicago-based rock outfit with a 60's girl pop bent. Last summer they opened for She and Him at Grant Park, and this year they were named one of 11 bands to watch in 2011 by the Chicago Tribune. You, dear reader, should hop over to their myspace and check out some of their awesome music. I tell you this because I know and appreciate your impeccable taste in music, as evidenced by your excellent taste in photography and our cherished and long -standing interpersonal relationship.

Emma's apartment is amazing. We chose to shoot in her spacious sunlit kitchen. I wanted to work with the ambient light, using the window as both a base level ambient exposure and as an edge. I keyed with my amazing new 42" silver-over-white umbrella from camera right. Here's an ambient exposure for comparison:

The umbrella does a good job of not only providing a really nice soft key, but also filling in the entire room. I would have liked a bit more ambient from the window, but that would have completely blown out all the detail outside. In the final image, the exterior is about a stop and a half over, which I think looks nice while still being believable. There's enough detail to show the guy standing on the roof across the street without it being terribly distracting.

Emma, either engrossed in conversation or commenting on how disproportionately small the coffee cup is that she's holding. 

Emma has promised me to hook me up with Heino, seen in the background above, for my final climactic 52nd portrait. 

Strobist Info:
SB-800 camera right through 42" silver-over-white umbrella with sto-fen diffuser

Camera Settings:
1/200 f/5.6 at ISO 200
Nikon 17-55 f/2.8@ 17mm