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I was sent to a ballet company to do a magazine cover shoot for a magazine I often shoot for. When I got there, they told me -- as I was carrying in my gear -- that I had half an hour before a class needed this room. I kinda laughed. I'd normally take an hour to an hour and a half to do a cover shoot. They ended up giving me an extra half hour and from the moment I took my first to my last shot, I took just 37 minutes.
I knew I wanted to do some edgy lighting for a potential cover, but with four dancers -- two pairs -- I realized I was going to have to go with cross lighting.
1. This first one was pretty easy, as they were back to back.
2. This is the shot that went for the cover. I had them essentially back to back, but the artistic director worked their arms around each other and then cocked their heads. I moved the lights so it still gave the edgy look to their face, but now it also lit up the back of their costumes by a bit as well. I was really happy with how this one turned out.
Ah, the thrill of being a photographer! Recently ran into the same issue, but in my case this was the poster for a local musical production. I won't post the gory details, but I know your pain! (lol)
story_teller wrote:
Ah, the thrill of being a photographer! Recently ran into the same issue, but in my case this was the poster for a local musical production. I won't post the gory details, but I know your pain! (lol)
dmacmillan wrote:
Both are nice, but I really like the second image. Nice work Ron!
I know subtlety gets lost in conversion for the web. In the original, is there more separation between his pants and the background?
Thanks, Doug. The second is my fave by far as well. it's funny about the separation between the pants and the background. I didn't even really look at here until you pointed it out. In the actual image, there's a clear line of demarkation between the pants and background, so I didn't even think it would blend into the background here. I'm curious how it's going to look on IG when I post it there next week. I need some separation there.
Thanks, guys! It's always funny to me how people don't understand how the lights work, in terms of their direction and fall-off. We did some group shots with the four dancers, so I had to put the lights out front, which of course added light to behind them. They asked me, "What happened to the black?" I'm always super nice because I know they're not used to the idea of how lighting works, but it's always kind of fun to see how people react to seeing the differences in lighting.
