Today, I spent some time in the afternoon with a kind friend (standing in for the CEO'S) setting up some light in preparation for some "environmental" photography. A series of images of the CEO's looking relaxed,approachable and friendly.
Before I met my friend at his office I already had an idea of the look of the images that I wanted to shoot....an idea of the light and where I'd need to place them to get the result I was after.
I used a 28 in. Recessed Front Westcott Apollo (http://www.fjwestcott.com/products/product.cfm?itemnum=2334&tbl=products&head=speedlite ) with an SB800 Nikon strobe unit to the right of the model,to the left I used as SB900 Nikon strobe diffused with a sto-fen (http://www.stofen.com/index.asp) angled at the subject and splashing some of the curved wall behind him. Directly behind the chair he was on I placed an SB600 Nikon strobe to direct some light up the wall.
I did some test shots of myself (using a remote )seated with props and then I had my friend come in and take his position while I directed him in how to sit before the camera.
My camera was set to manual (what else?) and the camera was firing the strobes in Commander mode. *This is not TTL (through the lens) mode where the camera makes choices about flash intensity and sends that information to the strobes to fire....rather this is the operator(that would be me) dialling settings in camera that affect the output of the strobe light and puts control effectively in entirety in my hands.
The post work in Photoshop was extremely fast and minimal, I had a very strong pre visualisation of how the finished image would look and the steps to that were basic at best. (some desaturation and lightening of edges)
This was a very productive light prep as I now know my original ideas about the quality and amount of light were on the money, I know exactly where to place my light relative to the subject and myself, and additionally I can show the CEO'S a complete series of poses and positions on an Ipad that were taken on the very same chair they are sitting on with the exact same light set up.They get to see a very very close approximation of the finished product even before I actually press the shutter release on my camera.
With my light dealt with through this kind of preparation, on the day of the shoot I can set up quickly,dial in my settings and then focus fully on working with the subjects to go through my set of prepared poses with some amount of confidence.
I put together some of the images from today as a set card.
*Not everyone may know this jargon,Canon users and others may have their own proprietary terms for the same thing.
