I did a shoot the other day for Andrew, a corporate client who works in alt. health and life industry.I
didn't post his site because I checked and he
hasn't posted the images yet, my ego wont let me be blamed for the ones hes currently using. (I'm smiling)
The idea was to produce some clean images that
can not only be used on a website but also brochures.Following my advice Andrew agreed to having
Jo Nelson do his hair and keep an eye on the shine that may be present under the lights.
In the studio (
www.ricwoods.com) when shooting men that
don't have a full head of hair I do not use a hair light.
I generally use a large
soft box in clos, if the guys have deep character lines, and a white reflector.It gives some contrast to the shot but has good detail for print and web. Remember you cant EASILY put detail in later and having black holes in print is not the go.
We tried various outfits but Andrew and myself were pleased with the white shirt on the white background.The
correct exposure ( I know I mention this often) is important so that I keep a clean defined edge with the white on white.These studio images are shot with a Nikon D300 and a 24-70 2.8
lens ( which I use often)
These images will easily lend themselves to being dropped onto another colour background or natural image like clouds etc for his brochures.
We went outside as Andrew wanted to have a natural shot with his car to show the distinctive number plate. That is my hair and makeup artist on the reflector trying not to sail away...Jo is little and light. You can see the reflection in the subjects face of the
Styrofoam reflector which creates a pleasing fill light. I was lucky to be using this as a big gust of wind came and as I grabbed the reflector the wind snapped a bit out of the side and Andrew was swatted with it (I'm pleased he
didn't sue).
This Styrofoam is not real good for the
enviroment but great for photographers. You can get several grades and the cheapest is not the way to go, as soon as you touch it, it turns into bean bag filling. You can buy the stuff from
Insulation Industries, tell them I sent you over to buy the damaged or dirty interior suspended ceiling tiles. You can gaff tape them into a folding book, they are much
better in wind than
those expensive folding photography types. I also use blocks of the stuff for kids to sit on and for product photography.
I am able to use the many places near my
Carrington Studio to the best advantage for shoots. We have waterways, the harbour, industrial backdrops including sheds, boats ,trains, waterways,
boat ramps, marina, bridges, parks and sports ovals and a walkway through the mangroves....a top place. I sound like a real estate agent.
This image was shot with an 85 1.4 portrait
lens.This is a fantastic
lens, especially when you want to isolate your subject in a crowd, or drop the background, in low light its a dream.It has creamy tones like
European glass. I believe I was using an
aperture of f2 for this with a circular
polariser.This reduces the reflections on the front window. Circular
polarisers only work for best effect if your 90 degrees to the sun, we were lucky in this case it was just about right.One disadvantage Ive noticed with the
polariser is that you can get a blue halo on some edges due to the colour spectrum shift.
I'm not a scientist so I
don't know all the correct lingo, but I do know
a bit about light and i do see it. Adobe bridge
can pull some of it out but not completely.
On a personal note Andrew was real pleased with our work and we had lots of good laughs during the shoot talking about motorcycles and what we got up to. That was in my previous life, the image below was 22 years and 5 driving licences ago...
the next images was was 3 years ago....the camera was always around... I don't need to own a motorcycle, my old boss lets me borrow them...a real cool guy.
I really enjoy working with people and finding out about them .....I love this job......
