John Ricard: So tell us who you are.

Chanvon Staten: Hi! I’m Chanvon Staten, a model/actress from New York.

John Ricard: Right now, why are you here today?

Chanvon Staten: I’m tasking with John Ricard today with some beauty shots.

John Ricard: Right, that’s a specific shot that I’m trying to recreate. They’re looking at the shot right now. And this is a picture that I took in a music video and I really like the shot. And I actually put it in my book. But the problem is I didn’t do the lighting on the shot; I didn’t set it up, I didn’t pose the model. I took it at a music video, its Chrisette Michele. So I said you know I want to go back to my studio and recreate a show with this similar mood and similar lighting. So that’s why we brought you here today to assist me with getting that same shot again.

Chanvon Staten: I’m very honored.

John Ricard: Thank you for coming out. Now, you have a book with—let’s see—

Chanvon Staten: Yes I do have a book.

John Ricard: Let’s see some of the other stuff that you’ve shot in the past. That’s very nice.

Chanvon Staten: This is also a beauty shot of me.

John Ricard: This is really nice the emotion is great here.

Chanvon Staten: Thank you.

John Ricard: In this picture, I love this. I saw this before in one of the other times that we’ve worked together and I told you it’s just a really great shot. Much better than what I would have done in the same situation and that’s nice.

Chanvon Staten: Another beauty shot here.

John Ricard: Now, it’s interesting because you have a lot of pictures on a white background and we’re actually shooting on black today. So I think this is going to work out well for you. You’re going to get a shot that’s very different from anything that I see there now.

Chanvon Staten: I do need some thing in a black—

John Ricard: So this is the first setup. A lot of times when I’m photographing a model test shoot I like to make sure the model get a shot that she’s going to like out of it. So I’m doing a head shot on Chanvon first. And because we’re using the Nikon D3 which is very good in low light, I can actually shoot a headshot of her using just this light here. So one of the things we want to do is get the white balance right. So Chanvon—I showed her how to do this, is using an ExpoDisc, she’s going to preset the white balance. She’s holding now the preset button is it blinking?

Chanvon Staten: Yes.

John Ricard: Okay, she’s going to take a picture of the light. That’s going to let the camera know once it tells us good—we’ll get these words here that says, “Good”, I don’t know if you can read on this, you probably can’t. But it’s going to tell us that the white balance preset is correct and we’ll get the right colors even though we’re using tungsten light here for her headshot.

So Chanvon is on her spot now and here’s what we’ve done. We’ve put it on a piece of black scene it’s 9 feet. I put it very far away from the paper and I’m lighting Chanvon with only one light. It’s a pro photo, head that has a reflector on it and a 40 degree grid. It’s to her side and she’s going to be facing looking into the light; not into the camera. And I’m standing in the position where this video-camera is now—look at the light for a second Chanvon. So she’s looking there. What we wanted was we don’t want this light to spill on to the black background behind her because we want the black to turn completely black. And we’re going to see what happens when we use just one light on Chanvon.

One of things you noticed is that there’s a lot of light in the studio right now. The windows are open here, there are windows, and there are lights on overhead. And sometimes people will say at me—people who are not photographers, they’ll say, “Oh you need to turn off these lights.” Well, you know you really don’t if you’re shooting like I am right now with 160th of second in F/8 none of these extra lights here is going to affect the picture at all. My camera is only going to see the light that’s firing here from this pro photo head. Nothing else is going to show up so I can leave the studio very bright like this as we shoot; something that’s going to look like a very dark photo.

So we’ve got a pretty good shoot so far. She’s looking good with the one light from the front. We’re going to add our second light now. You’ll see there is a reflector with a 40 degree grid spot. And in terms of positioning, this is what we get from the back. So we’ve got one light in the front, one in the back. Both basically the same thing; 40 degree grid in a reflector..

Chanvon is now finished for the day or I should really say morning. How long did the whole thing take Chanvon?

Chanvon Staten: Less than two hours, right?

John Ricard: Right, it’s probably about 90 minutes or so all together. So really it wasn’t that long and we thank you for coming out and helping with the test shoot. We’ve got you a nice shot and I’ve got myself a nice technique that I can use in the future. Right, so what’s next for you? Where are you headed today? You mentioned to me some place that you’re heading.

Chanvon Staten: Yeah, ride home then take a quick nap then I have a casting.

John Ricard: I think it’s kind of fashion magazine. We’re not going to say the name but its fashion magazine.

Chanvon Staten: It’s like cover.

John Ricard: And we hope you get it; I’m sure you will. And where can we find you, the people are watching this video and want to see more Chanvon.

Chanvon Staten. Go to myspace page, www.myspace.com/Chanvonstaten.

John Ricard: Spell the ChanvonStaten for us.

Chanvon Staten: Chanvon C-h-a-v-o-n, Staten S-t-a-t-e-n.

John Ricard: We’ve got it. Thank you very much and we will see you again.

Chanvon Staten: Thank you.

Khristena Jones: Hey, this is Khristena Jones right here in John Ricard’s studio trying to master this motion shot. Here we go.