Environmental Portraits

I got a couple of nice shots today... I picked up a portrait hob where I need to go to about twenty locations and photograph a bunch of financial types. Usually this means a bunch of boring shots, but I'm trying to get some portfolio pieces from this gig. There is no Art Direction, so if the shoots look like crap, it's all my fault. I've been wanting to do more environmental portraiture, so when this job came along, I jumped on it, even though it's paying a lot less than my normal rate.

Speaking of low-balling... I think I picked up another low-paying job that I really wanted. I'll be shooting some actors for posters that will appear in a movie. the movie has something to do with ultimate fighting and they're working on it here in Pittsburgh.

I had a call a couple of days ago and went to show my book for the job. It looks like the job is mine if I want it. Like I said, it doesn't pay much, but I'm thinking that this will add another dimension to my portfolio. I've actually scheduled a test shoot with a bunch of models so I can work up the lighting. I'm actually trying to create "bad" lighting, like some samples the movie people showed me. I scheduled the test shoot before I got the commitment for the job, thinking that even if the project fell through, the test shoot would teach me something, if not add to my portfolio. And besides, I had the time...

Here are two portraits for the financial people.



It was the client's idea to shoot with the city in the background, but rather than just line them up, I wanted to do something a little different. This probably won't make it int the portfolio, but it ain't that bad either...



Now this shot, I really like... To do this project profitably, I've had to strip down my kit so that I can get in and out quickly, without an assistant. I hate working without an assistant, but I've been trying to be a little more "photo-J" in my approach to shooting people. My kit consists of three hand-held Nikon flashes, a flex fill, three stands, a couple of umbrellas, a medium Chimera box, my camera stuff, and a tripod. Everything fits in a Pelican 1600 case and a small duffel bag for the stands, umbrella and tripod. If you're interested in seeing the lighting setup, check out one of my first posts on this blog.

The shot above was done with just one flash through the medium box off to my left. I turned off the overhead lighting but left on the "spots" on the wall. I also left the window shade open on the right side of the frame for a little fill. You can see that the light to the right goes a little blue in color. I don't mind that at all. I think it makes things look "natural". This in another example of that 85mm 1.4 lens. Man, I do like that there lens... :+)

TTFN