In April our group headed down to Middle Concho Park, a little-known location tucked away in a far corner of San Angelo's rapidly-diminishing Lake Nasworthy. It's a beautiful park, stretching out along a mile or so of land bordered by a tributary of the lake and overshadowed by the Twin Buttes Dam. Back when the reservoir that shares a name with the dam had some water in it, the earthen dam was used to hold back millions of gallons of water, some of which were periodically released into Lake Nasworthy via an enormous spillway at the farthest end of the park property. The spillway itself was carved until a natural bluff formation. This was our location for the day -- the spillway and bluff near the golden hour.
Our model for the day was Misty Taylor, with makeup done by Jessica Morales. We shot primarily in three spots -- On a graffiti-covered boulder with strong backlighting, partway up the bluff with a wide view of the surroundings and on a large boulder with shade in the background (see header image). Natural light or a mix of strobe with direct and ambient light were used at each location to get the desired look. We were fortunate to have a great quality of sunlight to work with that day but in shots putting the sun behind Misty or requiring some fill of shadows, the Mola Demi 22" beauty dish with a Paul C. Buff Einstein strobe attached were brought in. Through a coordination of effort between Erick Shriver, Colin Feldhaus and I, the full assembly of strobe and stand were hauled up the side of the bluff. We spent roughly 30 minutes or so up there taking photos using natural light and strobe before heading back down to the boulders and brush at the base of the bluff for a final set of Misty looking contemplative on a shaded rock. I hauled out the 28" Mola Setti dish with 20 degree grid and placed it about 20ft from Misty at a moderately high angle to produce an effect similar to a late day sun beam highlighting her.
It started to get chilly, so we packed up and put the lid on a successful April 2014 meetup.