My first meeting with the Creative Director, Art Director and one of the pastors of the
Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena lead me to believe that this was going to be a fun shoot, and it was... Mostly.
My assignment, Corporate Head Shots for 40 people.
I arrived a little early to set up, the scouting had already been done by the art director and after a conference call the day before I pretty much knew exactly what we were going to do. I had to do 35-40 people including some couples in a relatively short amount of time. I shot with my 70-200mm lens on a monopod (to control camera shake.) Then I shot my Quantum flash through an umbrella and underexposed the ambient a bit. The creative director wanted it really contrasty.
They also asked for the "largest negative possible." No problem my 5d mkII can pump out 21 mega pixel RAW images so I burned 5 dvd's and dropped them in the mail... Have fun gentlemen. Which brings me to an interesting question. I have heard a lot of photographers say "I would never give my RAW files." Why not? I can understand it for jobs where prints are going to be your main source of income, but for a job like this, no problem. If the art director wants negatives that's less post processing work for me. I would have delivered high resolution jpeg's, that was part of the deal from the beginning. So for me it's one less step on a job like this. The Creative Director wanted them framed real loose so he could crop them as he see's fit.
1/160 - f/5.0 - ISO320
1/160 - f/4.5 - ISO320
Tip: Remember when shooting dark skinned people you need a little more light so Instead of going over to my flash and pumping it up then walking back, taking the shot, then going back to my flash and resetting it, I just dropped my aperture by a third. A quick click on my camera's dial and we can keep moving.
As soon as we finished shooting 40 people in about an hour the pastor says to me "Oh and by the way I want get some real good shots of Gabe in some different locations. I want them to be real edgy and cool. And we only have a few minutes because he has to leave."
Uhhhhhmmmmm, where has that information been for the last 4 hours... At this point I am freaking out at least in my head, but out of my mouth comes the words "No problem, yeah let's go do something really cool." It is important to always keep my clients confidence in me super high. That way when I ask them to do something they give it everything they have, even if it's a bit ridiculous.
So we found some cool steps and away we went. I shot this first image with just available light at a really shallow depth of field. Watch your focus points though when your this shallow if you recompose you might have focus issues.
1/400 - f/2.0 - ISO320
For the next shot we moved 30 feet and found another pretty cool set of ascending stairs. For this shot I had Gabe's back to the sun using it a a rim light. Then I used my Quantum flash with a shoot through umbrella and exposed for a nice contrasty, edgy, cool shot. I didn't use a light meter just exposed for the scene dropped the ambient a little and brought up my Key Light until it looked good.
1/160 - f/3.2 - ISO125
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