
So for this shoot the location was crucial. I had to find a place that I could easily pull of for different location styles in one. After many phone calls, hours online researching and a day of driving around location scouting, I finally was granted authorizations to a great backdrop for part of the shoot at hand.
It was a great Hotel — Hotel Arribas — that not only had an Olympic sized swimming pool, but was also next to a gorgeous beach AKA Praia das Maçãs.
After guaranteeing my first location with authorizations and budgets, and after the client saw my location scouting images, he chose two other fairly close beaches where we could get a different type of rock formations along with a different look and feel for the images taken there. When I location scout I use an application called Sun seeker as it helps me plan the day’s shoot. It provides a flat view compass and an augmented reality camera 3-D view showing the solar path, its hour intervals, its winter and summer solstice paths, rise and set times and more and a map view showing solar direction for each daylight hour.

I was also shooting using a 3 Legged Thing tripod whenever I could because the tripod helps give me extra sharpness. I can also usually create a better connection with my models when I am not hiding behind the camera and a tripod helps a lot with that. I almost always shoot directly to Sandisk Extreme Pro CF and SD cards. 64 and 128 GB.
Lighting setup for the main image (at the beginning of the post):
Some images were shot using just natural light and a Westcott Scrim Jim with a silver fabric as a reflector. Here’s an example with both the image and the lighting setup:

![]() |
My assistant Paulo working on his tan with the silver side of a Westcott scrim jim 2×2 reflector |
My team for the day:
Photography & Production: Joao Carlos – www.joaocarlosphoto.com
Model – Rodrigo Soares
Make-up – Alex Me
Assistants – Paulo Reis, Gonçalo Madeira
Retouching – Bruno Jorge
Equipment used in the shoot:
Hasselblad – http://www.hasselbladusa.com
Canon – http://www.canon.com
SanDisk – http://www.sandisk.com
Profoto – http://profoto.com
3 Legged Thing – http://www.3leggedthing.com
Westcott – http://fjwestcott.com
Think Tank Photo – http://www.thinktankphoto.com
Lighting setups created using Sylights – http://www.sylights.com
0 likes