Quick and Easy Portrait

December 28, 2009 | Filed Under People, group portrait | Leave a Comment 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is recharging their internal batteries for the New Year.

During the holidays, families get together and it’s the perfect time to capture some great memories with your camera. Of course, most of us aren’t going to setup a huge elaborate lighting configuration with all the hustle and bustle going on in the house, so in a pinch find yourself a background that is not too busy or cluttered, grab your camera with an external flash to pop onto the hot-shoe, and a piece of white foam or poster board (optional).

The photo above was taken with my flash bounced behind me into the corner of the ceiling and wall. Sitting on the table in front of my subjects was a white 2×3 piece of foam board tilted slightly to bounce some light up to reduce some of the shadows in the eye sockets and under the chin. It’s not going to look as if it was shot in the studio with a softbox or beauty dish for a main light, along with a fill light, hair light and back light, but for something that just takes seconds to setup and keeps your holiday party or any other celebration moving along without interruption, it’s a perfect solution.

Quick. Easy. Painless.

Wrestling Team Poster

July 28, 2008 | Filed Under Digital Editing, group portrait, wrestling | 4 Comments 

Keith Watson, aka “Watty”, head coach of the John Carroll Wrestling team (a private high school in Bel Air) called me with regards to creating a team poster/schedule for the 08-09 season.  Watty, who is sometimes referred to the P.T. Barnum of Harford County wrestling, for he is always thinking of ways to market and promote his school and the sport. His first thought was to assemble the team on someone’s front porch and have some slogan referring to porch, big dogs, etc.

My initial reaction was trying to find a large enough porch for a shot like this, but even more challenging would be to find a time when all these guys would be free at the same time (over the summer), to make the shoot. These are high school boys, many who have summer jobs, are on family vacations, or are more interested in hanging with their girlfriends. I offered up a different idea — shoot each wrestler individually with a green screen, cut them out and create the illusion of a group shot. Using this method, each wrestler would be lit under controlled conditions much easier than trying to setup lights on location. This approach provides a way to now come up with any background image to use for the poster. The other advantage, is weather is a non-factor, so no rainout date would have to be planned.

The last day of class for John Carroll was June 6, so I went to the school that day, setup and shot each wrestler that Coach Watson wanted to be in the poster, before they all spread like wildfire after finishing the school year.

I submitted for review, ten different background images, from pastures to buildings, for potential candidates for the final poster. Coach Watson and his staff settled on the stormy clouds version. In addition, he let me know that one of the original wrestlers has transferred to another school and would need to be removed. With the removal of that wrestler, I then rearranged the other guys to balance it out.

Coach Watson wondered if I could add a bolt of lighting to the sky. I played around with Photoshop after Googling for help inspiration and technique from others. I personally like the poster without the lightning, but the coaches loved it, and wanted it included.

The final step was to add the text, and get the final OK.  Once approved, it was time to send the final image to the lab to print the posters.

This was a fun experience, and would gladly accept another project that could utilize the green screen.

-30-