How to Have a Simple Photoshoot (And Then Immediately Overcomplicate It)

(aka “From Idea to ‘What Have I Done?’ — The Artistic Spiral”)

Somewhere between “this will be a simple shoot” and “I am now constructing an artificial moon,” things got out of hand. Let’s discuss.

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You can have an inspiration board, a detailed shot list, a gear checklist, and a foolproof lighting setup — and at some point that beautiful, structured plan will get unceremoniously dropkicked into the abyss. And if you’re a certain type of person (hi, it’s me), you don’t just adapt to the chaos, you embrace it. Maybe a little too much. Maybe in a way that ends with you impulse-buying bed canopies and constructing an artificial moon.

This is the story of how I took a simple, elegant lighting concept and went completely off the rails.

It started, as these things do, with an idea for another shoot at my favorite studio, Spckrft Studio. My friend Lauren (@gothampd) sent me an inspiration reel — a dreamy setup, flowy fabric suspended from above, soft glowing light filtering through, ethereal as hell. I looked at it and thought, “Perfect. I have muslin fabric. This is gonna be easy.” Ah. Sweet, naive past me.

The problem? Muslin turns out to be too stiff and too opaque for the effect I wanted. A minor setback, right? A speed bump on the grand creative highway? Except instead of troubleshooting reasonably, my brain decided, “Well, we’re already here, let’s just buy some bed canopies and make something entirely different.” So that’s exactly what I did.

Did the canopies give us the soft, floaty, flowing-fabric dream of the original reference? No. Absolutely not. They were delicate and structured and sheer in a way that behaved nothing like the inspiration. But what they did do was let light pass through beautifully — which meant my improvised moon (a 32-inch softbox blasting out RGB magic) looked insanely cool behind the model. So instead of soft, ephemeral drapery, we ended up with a glowing, celestial fantasy scene, like some kind of ethereal goddess had stepped through the veil of reality itself.

Did I stick to the plan? No. Did it matter? Also no. Because that’s the thing about photography: sometimes you start with one vision and end up somewhere completely different, and way cooler. And that’s when I should have stopped.

But, reader, I did not stop. Because this shoot had other plans for me.

”I Meant to Do That”: When Inspiration Takes a Detour

So there I was, staring at a pile of sheer bed canopies and questioning every decision that led me here. This was supposed to be easy — a simple concept, flowing fabric, glowing light, soft dreamlike ambiance. But the second the muslin betrayed me (too stiff, too opaque, too much like a damn bedsheet), I spiraled into uncharted territory.

Here’s the truth about this kind of work: you can plan every last detail, but the moment reality smacks you in the face — or in this case refuses to let light through the way you wanted — you’ve got two choices. Give up and do something else, or fully commit to the madness. Guess which one I picked.

The canopies weren’t the plan, but they had one big advantage: they let the softbox moon shine right through, turning “flowy sheet magic” into something better — a glowing portal to the fairy realm. Delicate, surreal, eerie and ethereal in a way that made my models look less like people and more like otherworldly deities who’d wandered into my studio looking for lost souls. Not mad about it.

Lesson learned: sometimes the thing that doesn’t work for your original vision is exactly what the shoot needed. However. That was only the beginning of the accidental theme, because my models had a surprise of their own.

The Fey Conspiracy: When Your Models Accidentally Form a Cult

You know the moment in a movie when the main character stumbles onto a bizarre coincidence, squints at the camera, and mutters “that’s… weird”? That was me when I realized two of my four models had shown up in fey attire. This was not planned. No pre-shoot coordination, no secret fairy alliance, just a freak accident of cosmic proportions.

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And it wasn’t just that they were fairy — they were ethereal fairy. Forest-blessed deities draped in celestial light, standing in a perfect, unintentional aesthetic, with Lauren as a diametrically opposed cyber-burlesque dancer. They looked less like models and more like a council of supernatural beings deciding the fate of mortals.

Which left me, Raf, and the fourth model — our Little Mermaid. She had dark flowing curls, standing opposite this divine blonde tribunal like a Disney heroine who’d wandered into the wrong fairytale. Meanwhile I’m off to the side doing my usual moody-art-boy routine, looking like I’m about to monologue about destiny and the meaning of life. So there we were:

• The Goddesses of the Veil — radiant and celestial, as if they’d just stepped through a mystical portal to bestow wisdom (or judgment, or both).
• The Cyber Dancer — looking ready to banter with Harrison Ford about the meaning of existence.
• The Mermaid, the Steampunk Gentleman, and the Artist — watching, wondering, the opposing forces in the grand cosmic balance.

At that point I wasn’t sure if we were still doing a photoshoot or unknowingly reenacting some ancient myth where the outsiders must prove themselves worthy to the luminous fey queens of the realm. Either way: unreal, unplanned, and completely perfect.

The Secret Sauce: How to Accidentally Build a Moon and Become a God

All the divine energy in the world won’t save a photo if the lighting’s wrong. So here’s exactly how I lit this madness — not because you’re going to replicate it perfectly (feel free, but also embrace the chaos), but because sometimes the difference between a decent image and something that looks like a portal to another realm is just knowing which buttons to press.

The gear. Sony A7R V (the “I refuse to miss details” body), a 50mm G at f/2.5 — portrait-y but still dreamy depth — and a shutter at 1/320, because fabric was flying everywhere and autofocus does not love mesh between it and a face. I wanted the netting texture and the motion locked in without blur.

The lighting. Three lights, doing three jobs:

• Overhead, the divine glow: an Amaran 300c directly overhead, bathing the models in that soft, summoned-from-the-heavens light. Instant drama and depth — the kind that makes someone look like they’re stepping through a celestial gateway instead of standing in a studio.
• The “moon”: a second Amaran 300c in a 32-inch softbox, placed behind the model to mimic a glowing celestial object (moon? sun? wormhole to another dimension? you decide). Both it and the overhead ran off the Amaran app on my phone, because we live in the future and because I refuse to sprint back and forth adjusting lights like a medieval serf.
• Fill, to silhouette or not: an Aputure 300 LS with a giant softbox, my wild card. On for soft detail in the models, off to let them go pure silhouette against the moon — which honestly looked even more mystical.

The lighting hack, if you want easy drama: hit your subject from directly above and directly behind. No front fill, instant silhouette. Add front fill, celestial soft glow.

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Autofocus vs. the mesh of doom. One problem: autofocus hates mesh. With the models sometimes behind the netting, my camera kept going “cool, I’ll lock onto this random floating thread instead of the very obvious human.” The fix was a higher shutter speed and a wide aperture (f/2.5) — let autofocus struggle but still grab enough detail. Despite the fight, the A7R V did a phenomenal job. 10/10, would fight with autofocus again.

Photoshop, where I fix my brilliantly poor life choices. The lighting already looked incredible in-camera, but let’s be real, I wasn’t going to leave it there:

• Color correction: the overhead and backlights threw an intense green cast (cool, but not flattering on skin). I masked the models and subtracted some of the green so they read as celestial beings instead of wandering out of a toxic waste spill.
• The moon-glow hack: I could’ve used a fog machine to enhance the light beams. Did I want to spend four hours refilling fog juice? Absolutely not. Instead I dropped a god-ray overlay from Nucly over the background to fake an extra boost of heavenly glow.
• Light leaks for that ethereal look: I took the silhouette mask, applied it to the god rays, and pulled the density down a little so the light leaked through the edges of the models. The result: they looked like they were being touched by divine energy — which, at that point, I think they were.

Final Thoughts: The Beauty of Overcomplication

Could I have hung up a softbox, told everyone to stand still, and called it a day? Sure. But where’s the fun in that? Instead I built an artificial moon, bought mosquito netting like an overenthusiastic medieval castle decorator, and accidentally invoked an entire celestial pantheon. And you know what? Worth it.

Lesson of the day: sometimes your original idea isn’t the best idea, sometimes chaos leads you somewhere better, and sometimes you end up staging a divine council of fairy goddesses deciding the fate of an artist, a dancer, a steampunk guy, and a mermaid. Would I do it all over again? Absolutely. Next time, though, I might actually use that fog machine.

Ever had a shoot spiral into something better than you planned? Drop your story in the comments — I need to know I’m not alone in this madness.