Ron Shoots

Here’s another shoot from last week. Working on television wide screen display concepts. We leave the screen blank so the client can drop in their own image. In the years past, we would spend lots of time inserting images only to see the photo later with our image removed and another one inserted.

The lighting is pretty basic. The 2 strip softboxes are evenly balanced for the background while the overhead octagonal soft box lights the front of the TV. The overhead is positioned so the light falls in between the viewers and the TV so I can maintain a slight silhouette on the models.

I also kept the color balance on the cool side simply by setting the camera to “tungsten” balance. Since the emotion in the shot is rather chilly, my sense is that a blue tone would enhance that emotion.

Here’s the final shot!

The TV was rented, the models are a real-life couple, the sofa belongs to the studio… and the cabinet under the TV was put together by Luke, our brave photo assistant who actually read the instructions!

We had the opportunity today to shoot at one of the finest hotels in the Charlotte area. We started with a small shoot covering basic business, leisure and room service. We’ll be back in the spring for spa and golf shots.

Lighting & Tech Info

(Thanks Sara for the cellphone production pix! That’s Luke, our full-time photo assistant, working hard…)

Used our battery powered Hensel strobes and natural light today, or a combination of both. Mixing light sources generally provides a more natural look, although the color-correction afterwards can be tricky. When using the strobes, I kept it simple- one soft box for the main light, and one light in the background to add an edge light to the models. The power pack is dialed as low as it will go to allow for both a shallow depth-of-field and shorter exposure time to capture the natural light. With the natural light on a dark day, I needed 1/5th of a second exposures so everything was on a tripod.

Love cheap lighting! The main lights for this shoot came from the local hardware store- 4 colored floodlight bulbs and inexpensive worklamp fixtures to hold the bulbs. Total cost- less than $50. While the whole shoot could have been done with these four lights, I did add a spinning disco light from Musician’s Friend that cost $79. (OK, so now we can turn the studio into a nightclub after hours…) You can see the set-up in the first image below. I hung the colored lights from a crossbar and suspended the multicolor sphere on another light stand.

The model brought the wig and fake fur vest. The exposures were pretty long- around 1/10th of a second- so I used a tripod for most of the shots. Fun!!

(That’s our stylist Krista at work above…)

We turned our studio into an art gallery set yesterday. Pretty simple since our floors and walls are already white. Added track lighting from the Home Depot store and blank artist canvas from the local art store. We chose to keep the “paintings” blank so that any client using the image could easily drop-in their own artwork. With the shapes and shadows already in place, we will have saved a client valuable retouching time.

Walking, and walking some more…

In addition to portraits and looking at the art, I wanted to convey a sense of motion. The first frame is with a high shutter speed and studio strobes to freeze the model’s walk. The second frame was shot at about 1/4 second and natural light to capture just enough motion the blur the model but not enough so lose the shape of person. I discovered that if I clicked the shutter right when she put her foot down, that the foot would stay in focus while the rest of her body would appear in motion. Learn something every day!

Our awesome production team in Charlotte pulled together another cool retro set for a shoot last night. We expanded the wall of cheap paneling and rented more props from our local “retro” store. That funky lamp had just been purchased by the comedian Carrot Top so we needed to be extra careful!

Here’s what the shot looked like through the camera:

Lighting Sources

I usually try to keep things pretty simple but there’s times when you need multiple light sources. On this set there are 5 different lights: 2 soft boxes on each side of the set, a 20 inch “beauty” dish on the boom overhead and a ring flash on the camera. All of the Hensel Power Packs and Mono-Lights have variable power to get the balance just right. The 5th light source is the lamp- while it doesn’t actually provide much light, it’s nice to see the glow. I needed about 1/15th of a second to allow the lamp to show up.

I’ve been in San Francisco this week. Partly at MacWorld, partly doing a few shoots. At MacWorld, I volunteered for a few hours at MacWorld’s “Digital Photography Experience” to answer questions on shooting digital. Its always exciting for me to see more people getting interested in photography!

Twin shoot…

This morning I photographed Dan & Don- twin brothers from Boston, and in San Francisco for MacWorld as well. They run a cool video production company called Noisy Brain Productions- we met a few years ago. I asked them to bring a few sets of identical clothes. The mod ties are from the corner drug store! We laughed and continued to create fun images for a couple of hours. The images here were both shot with the Hensel ringflash. On the one with the light bulb, I used the “lens flare” filter in Photoshop to “turn on” the bulb.

The model in this shot just sent emailed me to say she discovered a poster of herself in a jewelry store in Australia- she was totally excited! Stock projects are great ways for models to get tear sheets.

What’s interesting…

Anyway, what I find interesting is how the art director saw this image. The original is on the left- there’s lots of space, the beach and ocean. In the ad, the client has cropped the shot to almost vertical and added more sky. Then lots of graphics and words have been placed on top.
As a stock photographer, I always need to remind myself that my image is not the final artwork. The image will be cropped, manipulated and type or other design elements will be added.

My model in the “Halle Berry” post below also has a wonderful bright colorful collection of Indian clothes. I picked the orange to contrast against the blue sky. Isn’t orange opposite blue on the color-wheel? (I should know this stuff better!)

Shot today with a beautiful young woman of Indian/American heritage. Her mom lives in India. I’ve actually worked with this model for over 5 years. I hear great stories every day! Besides working at a local “shave ice” shop, she’s also a surfing instructor and taught Halle Berry how to surf on her recent trip to Maui.

All the images are straight natural light using the Canon 1Ds MII and 28-300mm lens. Check out how the white reflective side of the surfboard is providing a fill-light! (Its the small things that keep me amused…)