Monday, November 14, 2011

How I Got The Shot #26 - Senior Portraits of Chris



One of the most memorable times in a students life is their senior year in high school.  The excitement of finishing up something, the anticipation of going off to college, starting that career path.

Photography captures a moment in time - a way to share in visualization, you at that time in your life.

Meet Chris.  He is a 2011-2012 senior at Reynoldsburg High School.  Come with us on our photo shoot with Chris!

Check out the details after the break...
Creative Process:
Chris and his family had quite a few ideas for his themes.  We collaborated on the locations we thought would be appropriate and Chris brought his support team that day - parents and girlfriend.
Our first location is Jeffrey Mansion in Bexley, Ohio.  The thought being - what better way to show off a senior in his impeccably tailored suit than at a mansion!






Still at Jeffrey Mansion, it was time to have a little more fun - this time with a cowboy theme!!





Pretty cool stuff...but we are not done yet!!  Now we are off to the home of the Ohio State Buckeyes - The Horseshoe!!


Then one more stop - Raider Country!!  At the 50 yard line.


And just for good measure - a 6 image stitched panorama!!!


Locations:
Gear:
Nikon D300
Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8
Nikon 300mm f/4 IF-ED
Nikon SB-600 - Lumiquest Softbox LTP (Nikon CLS iTTL)
Impact 33" 5 in 1 reflector set

EXIF Info:
Shot in manual mode or aperture priority
Camera quality setting - RAW - processed in Lightroom 3.6/Photoshop CS4
Specific camera settings changed per image, so that info will be placed in the image captions.

Lighting Setup:
Various setups - some shots used the SB-600 setup, others used the reflector setup.
A note about Nikon CLS:
During this shoot, the camera was in Matrix metering mode.  Since the subject had on darker clothes and the overall scenes were darker in tone, the speed light was instructed to fire off a little more powerful than I had wanted.  Given that, I adjusted the speed light flash exposure compensation anywhere from 1 to 2 stops negative.
Remember - we want to make the images look natural, not like they were nuked with an external light source.

The following are various versions of lighting setups used during this senior shoot.  In all shots we used a mixture of ambient light as well as either a reflector or a soft boxed speed light to enhance the lighting in the shots.  Pretty basic stuff, but it is good to have diagrams to let techniques sink in.

Please note that the diagram at the bottom right, the diffusion panel would be placed over the subject.  We were shooting through leaves in the trees and the light was very mottled.   This helped to even the lighting out.

The silver disks in the top right and bottom left are silver reflectors.



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