Here’s another one of those shots with Adelene.

The place was beautiful, so I wanted to bring out the character and the intrinsic designs so thoughtfully incorporated here. We were shooting a series of portraits of four employees for an advertisement. So in this place, the employee would pose with the different chemicals that are mixed for each customer. Pretty neat stuff considering it’s open for everyone to see and admire. In this shot, I used one key light to camera right, with a softbox, and one highlight to camera right also but behind the subject. Of course it didn’t work out. In the final shot, the highlight was left outside the room shooting through the glass. The final shot really worked.

We had a few rooms to shoot the portraits and one of them was a room designed to serve the guests tea. Liz was of course the lighting model of the day and here’s the test shot. One key light in a softbox and one highlight behind shooting through and umbrella, and making sure the vertical strips of wood had enough light to differentiate it from the back while throwing a bit of light on her. The final image was from a slightly different angle but an even stronger image.

What’s that blurry thing in front? This is what it looks like under the same lighting, taken by Liz

Image taken by Liz

Will post the images after the ad is released.

My immediate thoughts were, thank goodness the shoot’s at Capella. That would’ve been one of the best places to shoot indoors. The hotel prides itself with marrying the old colonial building and new architecture. It was the colonial setting that attracted me most and we’re glad that came out well in the pictures. So the cure for a rainy day? Look for the beautiful window light to work with since the light outside isn’t too strong and contrasty. The last few images were a good blend of warm and cool light. I though that came out quite well.

Here are a few images from the shoot.

More of such images can be seen in my Wedding Photography webpage or in the Pre-Wedding Photography category of this blog.

Technically, I just used two lights but I positioned them in such a way to create high contrast images, a bit strong and harsh. I originally wanted this series to be in black and white but the colour version is equally exciting. Key light was from a 80X120cm Softbox on camera right and highlight with an umbrella on camera left. Lights were 500W Bowens.

To make the white background glow in the first image, I flooded it directly with one light. I think I must have max-ed the output. The idea was to let the white glow or glare into the image. I love to shoot against the sun, and I guess this was the effect I wanted to create, short of positioning the light behind and shooting straight into the camera.

More of such images can be seen in the Family Photography category of this blog.

My guitar is going to be famous. For my keepsake, I didn’t DI away the pick mark in the full body portrait We did the shoot to her music, blasting away from her phone. Awesome stuff, look out for her CD! Her voice is so rich and I can’t wait to hear her music on a proper sound system.

Alila, I thank God for your talent!

Technically, it’s a very simple lighting setup. The idea was to just shoot against white to leave the CD designer a bit more creative space. Alila had not engaged a designer yet and decided to go ahead with the photoshoot first. So I set up:

1. One 80X120cm softbox on camera right for most of the shoot.

2. One light with a diffuser to light the white backdrop. If you don’t do this, you won’t be able to get a completely white background. The trick is to adjust your light ratios.

3. One light with diffuser at camera left, slightly behind her to light her hair and give the edgy light on hair and part of the face. I don’t use this all the time though.

These were essentially the lighting setup throughout most of the shoot. Of course I played around with light output and direction of the key light quite a bit for visual variety.