Somebody asked about the setup on this shot from the recent tilted challenge.
This was a session that i'd been looking forward to since the concept was discussed early this year. My friend had an idea to use his son with a Harley trike and a policeman(he supplied the policeman who supplied the car). He also supplied the kid. Come to think of it, all I did was show up and shoot! :) After buying some cybersync triggers I knew this was the kind of shot that would be a blast.
The idea was to simulate a late evening shot with my flashes doing the bulk of the lighting work. I wanted fairly harsh lighting and a rather gritty look. LUckily this was cool with Mom/Dad and the little guy was a champ!
Shot the series with my 5D/17-40 combo. Laying on the ground for about half, on a tripod for the rest. The parents wanted to use the image for a Christmas card this year(third year in a row I've done their Christmas card pic) so the idea was to place the child in the dominant position and make the policeman part of, but not the focus of the picture. The shot I posted above is probably the closest we came to producing that image. I had a couple of others that were better but the license plate wasn't obscured and I did'nt want to get anyone in trouble by showing a pic without the plate obscured. For the Christmas card we are going to personalize the plate with the word "Grinch". You can see that in my edit of another version below.
sorry about the watermark.
Lighting was an AB400 about 5' high, pointed down at the trike. I moved it to camera left or camera right depending on the orientation of the trike. A second light was placed camera right at 90 degrees+ pointed at the trike to provide harsh side lighting on the boy. A third flash was placed camera right at 90 degrees to subject to crosslight. This flash was relatively ineffective in most shots because the cop was blocking the light from reaching the child. Both crosslight flashes were zoomed to 105mm and set about 5' above the ground(bungeed to a city tree). The tricky part was keeping the child/trike combo in the right spot. We'd get them set down and I'd start snapping as soon as his dad stepped back. Rinse, repeat. I'd estimate it took about 10 takes to get a series of photos that looked promising.
For the ones with his parents in the BG, I wish I'd have flashed one of the flashes against the side of the car to throw some light on them. IMO, it's ok that they aren't lit but I'd have liked to see a little light on them. Placing them in the BG was my last minute idea so they weren't really dressed for it. But, I still like the dynamic of them in the picture.
It was a blast to shoot and it has me shopping for another wireless reciever and flash combo. It was fun to have the results match what was in my head. I know some improvements could be made but I was happy.
Processing was done with lightroom, extra fill light, and a little dodge and burn on the policeman's face. I skewed the white balance towards the cool end and partially desaturated the image. Does this make me a strobist? :)
No sweat re WM.
Just brilliant Mark, and whilst you saw my in-voting comment re the idea, you did bloody marvellously. Cool idea that Joe Public hire Joe Photog to do Xmas cards..you just gave me an idea for extra beer money :) Kudos!
No sweat re WM.
Just brilliant Mark, and whilst you saw my in-voting comment re the idea, you did bloody marvellously. Cool idea that Joe Public hire Joe Photog to do Xmas cards..you just gave me an idea for extra beer money :) Kudos!
Thanks Harvey and thanks for the in-flight comment. VWD = Very Well Done??
I can't even begin to read what you wrote due to that horribly offensive watermark on the image. How do you expect people to view the image with that atrocity on it? HOW DARE YOU.
Absolutely delightful, and what a fine little actor you had to shoot! Gotta love that his parents could come up with a cop and a car... :-) VERY nice work!
@ yanko-- Busted!
@ Medoomi-- The AB400 had an umbrella, the two Canon flashes were un-modified except for zooming the heads.
@ AJ-- did you take the poll yet? ;)
The cop is dating the dad's sister, so lining him up was pretty easy. He had to get permission and I was asked to remove license plate and identifying names.
