Complicated Light

A co-worker of mine may be losing his office in the near future. We all may be losing them due to growing needs. It's going to be a sad day when this happens. But to remember the good times, Antoine (pictured) asked me to take a photo of him so he would never forget the good times of having his own office.

He had a chocolate cigar that he wanted to use in the photograph. That immediately got my mind racing with ideas. I knew I wanted to show him in a powerful setting like a crime boss. This is quite the contrast to his real character that I knew it would make a good photo.

I set up in his office during lunch. I had just bought a new 430ex speedlight that I could use for a hair light so I knew I would be getting my most complicated lighting shot yet. I shot at 1/250 shutter speed at f/3.5. This knocked out any light from the horrible flourescent lights that are in the offices. I used my 580ex II to provide the overall fill light. I set up one 430ex speedlight on the ground and shot it through a plant. This is providing a little texture on the back wall, it was pretty boring otherwise. I then had another 430ex speedlight shot through a snoot and taped this on the book shelf. This was providing my hair light that would help pop him off the background. The last 430ex was shot through a snoot with a CTO (change to orange) gel that would hit his face and provide my key light. The CTO gel helps to add some natural skin tone back to his face and help it pop a bit more as well.

Wow, that was a mouthful. First time I've used 4 lights to photograph anything. When he returned from lunch, he sat down and we were cooking. I had to adjust the one light that was hitting his face since I wasn't sure where it would be when I was setting up. I shot for about 10 minutes and got some great shots. I then pulled back my setup shot then adjusted my white balance to fluorescent to throw the overall color blue. With that CTO gel, it knocked the overall room blue while keeping him quite natural.

I moved in with this new white balance setting just for fun and snapped my last photo. I knew I had some good shots so I didn't play on this mode much. But this last shot ended up being the best. The color just gives it a unique feel and I love how his natural skin tone contrasts with the rest of the photo. Not to mention, his expression looked the most menacing.

Lunch Break

I sometimes spend my lunch break studying photography. Whether it be reading online, reading a book I have, or snapping photos, I like to enhance my skills.

This particular lunch break I decided I would try to turn our boring conference room into a photo studio. It's your typical conference room - 4 walls, big white board, long table, and two doors. Nothing special, but certainly a place you wouldn't think you would take a portrait in.

So, I set up one Canon 430EX speedlight camera right with a shoot-thru umbrella. This was going to be my main light. I then set up another Canon 430EX speedlight at the end of the conference table. I got some books to prop the speedlight on and grabbed a plant from a co-worker's office. This is what was going to give me my background. I oriented the speedlight to shoot thru the plant, giving me a nice effect for the background. I then added a gel to give me some color.

I used the E-TTL function of the Canon 40D to fire the flashes. I had the main light in group A and the background in group C. What's nice about E-TTL is that you can set up the speedlights in their correct group and tell the camera what ratio you want to use. It then figures out how hot the flashes need to fire in order to get the proper exposure.

I took this photo, among others, and I was very happy with what turned out. It also helped that my co-worker stepped in to model or you'd be looking at a conference room chair.