FYI / people ~ what I was doing yesterday / feeding the monkey on my back
Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 11:42AM ;)
Portrait on location • click to embiggen;)
A Portrait setup • click to embiggenSuddenly, I am knee deep in client requests for portraits made on location.
I can honestly say that I have never pursued portrait business, other than portraits made for business clients. In fact, other than family members, I have probably made less than a dozen non-business portraits. On the other hand, I have made hundreds of business client portraits - corporate CEOs for use in annual reports, general workers (business and labor) for annual reports and corporate capability publications, editorial / magazine feature and cover uses, to name just a few types of business portraits.
While some portraits were made in work environment available light, reportage style, many were made with setups similar to that shown here. In some of those situations, the lighting requirements were much more complex than the pictured setup. It was not uncommon to be using 4-5 lights and multiple scrims and fill cards and hauling all the stuff around was a pain in the ass. But, of course, it wasn't my ass hauling all that stuff around because that's what god made photo assistants for.
The lighting setup for yesterday's session - 3 different persons - was rather simple. The main light was a strobe with a large reflector with diffusion screen attached, and a fill card to soften the shadows. The background umbrella light was connected to another strobe power pack on which the wireless triggering sync was turned off. That was so because I wanted to bathe the background in the warm tungsten light of the modeling lamp.
I still use strobe equipment for 2 reasons - first) it's what I know and, second) at this time, I don't do enough of this kind of work to justify the expense of acquiring professional quality LED light panels.
FYI, I still keep my hand in this market because it is much more lucrative than the general (public) portrait market. In the business market, I don't have to compete with the Sears / department store portrait studios and other not-so-skilled-but-cheap purveyors of less than discriminating pictures. And, the income helps feed my art / personal habit.
Reader Comments (2)
Is that one of your prints on the wall? That would make it a double hitter!
Andre - yes, that is one of my prints.