Sixty minutes, why 60 minutes? Because that’s how long clients usually give you to complete what thy think is a simple task – making them look good. This series takes the reader through a shoot, from walking through the door of the office and meeting the client/sitter. Having a chat with them to establish a bit of a rapport while scouting about for locations to take the photos, setting up the lighting then the actual shoot itself before packing up and leaving. It’s a pretty intense time but I enjoy the challenge. I started off with a plain grey background set up in the dining room of his house, the key light is on the left with a large fill light directly behind me. We started off with some simple poses, this lets Nick get comfortable with the camera and I can get a feel for how I want the shoot to go
During a shoot I also make subtle changes to the light to create different moods as illustrated in the next two photographs. The first is the original two light set up.
This next shot I switched off the large fill light behind me and let the key light do all the work
The difference is subtle, the key light is getting some light kicking back from the wall on the right, If I’d wanted that side of the face to be darker I could have put up a black sheet to stop the reflection but I was happy with the overall result.
So, we are twenty seven minutes into the photoshoot since I walked through the door, I’ve taken 30 shots in seven minutes, time to move on to the next stage.