This fun shoot was on campus and the trees made for stunning bokeh. Cropping was the key to the final image to bring the eyes up close and invitingly friendly. Shot using flash and a soft box to focus light where the photographer wanted it.
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Musician photo sessions are full of creative ideas. Musicians are all about the music and their instrument, so we gave center stage to the trumpet in this headshot. The beauty and contrast of the metal and skin is the life a musician breathes into his instrument. This was shot in-studio using Paul Buff’s PLM umbrellas and Einstein Studio Flash for precise control of the strength of light.
Headshots are a marketing tool for professional from all industries.
What separates a headshot is the intimacy of the subject with the camera/photographer. While a portrait may be full length, 3/4 length or chest high, a headshot is about the face. Lighting is the key. The above was shot with Paul C Buff Einstein and Beauty Dish. The light wraps around the face creating subtle shadows. For the subject of a headshot – the facial expression is critical. Talk with your photographer before the session to capture the expression you are looking to convey to your viewers.
This dental practice wanted their website to reflect the fun spirit of the dentists and the staff. We put a different spin on the lifestyle portraits of the team groups. This turned out beautifully with composition and balance and the doctor’s smile lights up the photo.
Lighting:
Paul C Buff 64″ PLM Umbrellas
Two Einsteins
Website photos can go beyond the somber to this fun shoot. It captures the fun spirit of this staff portrait. (We took serious shots, too – but these won out!)
Using 64″ Paul C Buff PLM umbrellas, two Einsteins to get that beautiful deep separation of tones.
A large staff group shot needs a bit of pre-planning. This session greatly benefited from color coordinated clothing. Body language is a subtle way to bring the comfortable warmth of a large group and takes patience to arrange.
Lighting for a large group gives depth. We used 64″ Paul C Buff PLM umbrellas – one on each side.
Typically the proper way to shoot a product set up like this is to have 2 separate shots and composite these in Photoshop. It’s impossible to properly exposure for the box and not blow out the white pearls. For this shoot we didn’t have time to remove the pearls as this was rush job. We elevated the camera to a high angle using a macro lens, used an overhead diffused light source with a silk scrim. We used another light source in front – to highlight the front of the box and the top inside of the box. Once we properly exposed the light we stack focused with about 20 shots from top to bottom. We would like the box interior whiter, but couldn’t do it in the time we had, so this shot was usable. Generally these types of jewelry shots require an enormous amount of time get the right lighting with the proper exposure.
We had enough time to properly execute this shot, which requires two separate set ups. The first setup was to light and properly expose the ring. We only used an overhead light source with a silk scrim for this, stack focusing with about 10 shots using a 2.8 macro lens. For the second setup we removed the ring using three light sources for the outside and inside of the box. We stack focused with about 10 images. In Photoshop we put the two shots together achieving the whiter box interior.
Product on white background is the standard today. Minimal stack focusing is needed for this black leather belt leaving the edges slightly out of focus for an attractive image with depth. We used a transparent surface using three studio flashes – one overhead with a silk scrim, two soft boxes on either side with flags to block the light. A white background is lit by one flash meticulously placed, together yielding the pure white background we’re after.
This diffuser product begins with a lush reflective foreground and organic items to complement the style of this product. Shooting on a specialized surface gives the refection we were after fading into white. This is achieved by a lot of light precisely directed.
For a dramatic style we pulled in a textured background, a simple brick and keeping our organic theme – a few accents to give this diffuser a new face!
Read more about product styling.
The beauty of clear shiny glass. Lighting glass requires a toolbox of gadgets to achieve the final product image on white. A specialized surface gives the reflection in the foreground at the base of the glass diffuser. In order to keep any shadow from interfering with the transparency looking front to back means flooding the background with light and strategically placed strobe flashes. While striving for glass on white be careful not to lose the definition of the bottle. We used a number of light modifiers and redirected light as need to create this final image of lightness and clarity.