{"id":24344,"date":"2014-10-27T22:27:04","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T02:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=24344"},"modified":"2020-06-20T23:00:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-21T03:00:56","slug":"location-headshots-promotional-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/location-headshots-promotional-portraits\/","title":{"rendered":"On-location headshots and promotional portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On-location headshots and promotional portraits<\/h1>\n

One of the things I like the most about photography,\u00a0aside from the cool toys, is that you get to meet interesting people. Characters. People with spark. The challenge is then to capture that and show it in the photographs. A\u00a0headshots photo session needs to be more than just a mere glimpse of your subject’s personality.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Arons, also known as\u00a0\u201cthe trombone dancer\u201d, is a multi-talented\u00a0actor, singer, dancer and musician, based in New York. Jonathan needed some professonial\u00a0headshots and some portraits for promotional use.\u00a0We shot these on location in New York. As you can see, there is a dynamic persona here with a lot of energy! With\u00a0portraits, the intent is always to show the personality and charm. Even some of the playful\u00a0spiritedness. All of this added up to make\u00a0the photo session real fun. That glitter suit though!<\/p>\n

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This is the pull-back shot of the photo at the top. The lighting is simplicity itself – available light coming in from behind me where we were working under the over-hang of this building. Then, just a touch of flash from behind to give a bit of rim light to separate him from the background.<\/p>\n

camera settings: 1\/250 \u00a0@ \u00a0f\/4 \u00a0@ 200 ISO
\n70-200mm f\/2.8 zoom, used at 200mm.<\/p>\n

The thought-process in using the available light here, is specific. And it is very similar to how it was described in this article:\u00a0using available light is not a random thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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It’s an area I often shoot in, and I know that it will work. Re-using specific spots help me in getting the rhythm of the photo session going.\u00a0It’s not necessary to always create new images for every sequence you shoot for a client. My thoughts here is that clients expect a certain look, and using familiar spots help in giving a look consistent with your portfolio. Then, during a photo session, (especially on location), we can innovate and look for new ways of shooting. So with most\u00a0photo sessions it is a combination of producing solid reliable work, and improvising, looking for more.<\/p>\n

With this next sequence, I relied on the compression of the 70-200mm f\/2.8 used at 200mm focal length. This way I can “stack” elements in the background, simplifying it. Here I was able to use the black-painted facades effectively. All it needed then was just a touch of light from an off-camera flash to clean up the light on his face.<\/p>\n

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camera settings: 1\/250 \u00a0@ \u00a0f\/3.2 \u00a0@ \u00a0400 ISO, with off-camera flash\u00a0added to the available light.<\/p>\n

I had my assistant rotate the stripbox like that so that we could control the light that fell on his face, compared to the rest of his body.<\/p>\n

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I wanted the city to feature more in further sequences, but just as context. \u00a0It had to look urban, but\u00a0not distract from my subject.<\/p>\n

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With the image on the left, the flash was mere fill, slightly lifting the contrast.
\n1\/250 @ f\/4 @ 100 ISO<\/p>\n

With the image on the right, I wanted him to be more lit than the background. 1\/250 @ f\/5 @ 50 ISO
\nDropping the ambient by nearly two stops, and then giving proper exposure with the off-camera flash, gave the results I wanted. \u00a0I would’ve wanted slightly less DoF, but I had bottomed out on my ISO already.<\/p>\n

Working closer to my subject with the the 1×3 stripbox, is a preference, because of that fall-off in the light to the bottom half of the image. I often purposely turn the stripbox horizontally for that effect.<\/p>\n

More of the sequence shot at 1\/250 @ f\/4<\/p>\n

To have Jonathan appear crisply sharp when he\u00a0jumped, I tripped my shutter at\u00a0the peak of the jumps. Then, in that split-second of “weightlessness”, there is not as much subject movement to cause blur.<\/p>\n

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Moving around the corner, and with a change in outfit, we continued …<\/p>\n

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Related articles<\/h2>\n