Celia D. Luna is a visual artist who specializes in fashion and portrait photography. Her culturally rich childhood was immersed in Andean folklore and traditions of rural Peru - a colorful and magical landscape that inspires her photography and fashion. Through her narrative approach to photography, Celia brings diverse cultures and powerful women to life. She resides in Miami - a city whose multicultural influence continues to shape her evocative style.

 

Photo Credit: Celia of Celia D. Luna

 

Celia captures photographs with a whimsical and colorful feel that is both bright yet airy. She began photographing while she was in a dark period of her life and found that adding colors helped her tap into her actual self. She realized colors were a part of her Peruvian roots, also known as the Land of a Thousand Colors.  

 

 

Gadgets and gear for a quick set-up in the studio

Celia used a Canon EOS R5 and a Profoto B10 with 2 V-Flat reflector panels.  The Profoto B10 was used to light her face and the 2 V-Flats were placed on each side of her to bounce light onto her. With the recent addition of the Raven, she feels confident photographing clients as well as herself for self-portraits.

“The Raven is simply the most innovative gadget in photography. It has helped me tremendously in photographing my self-portrait series and I can’t imagine photographing myself without it,” says Celia.

 

Unlike photographing outdoors, indoor photo shoots provide photographers with the ability to control lighting to create a mood for their session. The art of controlling lighting is hard work and requires planning to produce the correct light set-up, which Celia notes is important to accurately depict a desired story. 

 

Lighting for Celia is a key factor in creating a successful image. With all the colors involved in her photography style, lighting determines not only brightness and darkness, but also tone, mood, and the atmosphere of her images. Controlling and manipulating light correctly helps achieve the best texture, vibrancy of color, and luminosity on her subjects. 

Since making the Raven one of her go-to gadgets, Celia has found the lighting process simple, and the anxiety level that most photographers suffer with every session greatly reduced.

 

Photo Credit: Celia - A for Anatomy

 

“The Raven gives me so much more control in more than just one way,” says Celia. 

Read on to find out which of the Raven’s features Celia uses in her self-portrait sessions.

 

The self-portrait journey

Celia has embarked on a self-portrait challenge which involves producing a photo based on a chosen word starting with each letter in the alphabet, from A to Z. Every week or so she asks her social media followers to suggest a word for her to use. Whichever suggestion inspires her the most is her final choice and she starts to build a scenario around it.

 

Photo Credit: Celia - C for Carnavales


Celia starts off by updating her Raven to the latest firmware. Doing this once a month ensures the Raven will perform even better than the last time it was used. The Raven has a built-in Wi-Fi chip that allows you to connect it to 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi networks or cell phone hotspots for firmware updates via the cloud. By toggling through the easy menu, Celia selects the Wi-Fi update and within a matter of minutes her Raven is ready for use.

 

Next, she sets her lights. Since Celia uses Profoto, she sets it as her primary light and uses the command ring dial on the Raven to get the perfect setting dialed in.

 

Photo Credit: Celia - G for Glamor

 

She uses the Raven’s Sound Trigger mode for her series. Simply put, Celia photographs with the Raven set to Remote Receiver mode so it is triggered by sound. “It’s a very unique feature unlike any other trigger I have used,” says Celia. I can adjust the sound sensitivity by rotating the command dial to the level of noise I want to trigger my camera with my voice. It’s just amazing.”  


In addition to the sound trigger feature, Celia uses the Remote Trigger photo count along with Trigger Delay. These two Raven features add a helpful trigger delay for Celia to set her pose and an additional photo count to change pose between images. These three features combined enable Celia to save valuable time, making the photoshoot smooth and fast. 

 

Photo Credit: Celia - H for Heaven

 

Working through the self-portrait challenge, Celia is currently at letter H for Heaven. She chose the word because it provides room for creativity and she has been wanting to play with the sky and create a heavenly setting in her home. She built a home studio with a backdrop to depict a sky and little clouds made from pillow stuffings. As a nod to her heritage, Celia has incorporated long braids into the photograph. The hat with the face on it comes from Italy - a gift from a friend - which she uses as a replacement for her own face, showing that you're not a person anymore, you're in heaven.



All work and no play makes Celia a sad photographer

Celia’s advice is to “just have fun with every photo session. Sometimes we get very technical about lighting and the process and how it's going to play out. But I feel it's very important to have fun in the process.”

 

Learn more about the Raven from our Explore Raven section on the website:

Camera control

WiFi updates

 

 

Photographer: Celia D. Luna

Personal portfolio: https://www.celiadluna.com/ 

Facebook: @celiadluna

Instagram:@celiadluna

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