The male portrait
By nature, I find that I like most men prefer to avoid being photographed wherever possible. That is unless we are performing a death defying stunt, or similar activity based concept. Fathers of young children can be an exception to this rule because they find it more comfortable to be photographed with their offspring, and the opportunity they bring to hide behind them, relaxes even the most camera shy male.
It was therefore with some surprise that my son Fraser agreed to have some new portraits taken. The last time I photographed him, apart from the usual family snapshot, was during his first year at Uni in 2007, we did the shoot on the beach at Boscombe in the middle of December, it was freezing and he really did not enjoy the process, partly becuase there was an end of term hangover still making its presence felt, and the single figure temperatures.
No surprise it has taken 5 years to arrange another photoshoot. Having graduated from Bournemouth University in 2011 with a Bsc in Sports Management, Fraser wanted to combine a sports and business theme. With golf as one of his favourite sports, we had the beginnings of a shoot concept.
I wanted a lighting set up that had an element of drama. I admired the promotional images for this years Apprentice series, and appreciated the styling, and Fraser had seen a portrait of cricketer Kevin Peterson that he liked. These gave us the basis for setting up the lighting. I am also a great fan of US photographer Joel Grimes, who is famous for photographing sportsmen and ladies, in a studio, and then compositing them into a location background. Joels technique is ideal where the subject cannot get to the location for the shoot, or the weather conditons are poor. A lighting technique that Joel uses often is a high key light with 3/4 back lights on the subject to create a rim light, the latter is what makes the composite scenes so believable, because it creates the impression that the light is coming from the scene, and lighting the subject.
The images below are without the compositing, which at the time of writing in February 2012 the golf course that we want to use is not looking at its best and neither is the light. So watch out for a later blog on this subject in the spring for the final composited images. In the meantime the results of the studio set up are here, and at the bottom the beach shot taken 5 years earlier.
Tech spec
Key light: Large beauty dish set centrally high above the camera on a boom. By placing the key light on a boom it does not obstruct the view of the subject from the camera position.
Rim lights: Two 130x30cm gridded softboxes positioned at ground leval as 3/4 backlights to give rim highlights on the clothing and face but not on the top of the head, this would help later to create a realistic look when we created the composite image.
Strobes: 3x Bowens Gemini Pro heads, the short flash duration of the Pro heads are invaluable to freeze action like the golf ball being thrown into the air
1/125th sec@f11, ISO 100, Canon 5D MK2, Canon 24-70mm 2.8L
By nature, I find that I like most men prefer to avoid being photographed wherever possible. That is unless we are performing a death defying stunt, or similar activity based concept. Fathers of young children can be an exception to this rule because they find it more comfortable to be photographed with their offspring, and the opportunity they bring to hide behind them, relaxes even the most camera shy male.
It was therefore with some surprise that my son Fraser agreed to have some new portraits taken. The last time I photographed him, apart from the usual family snapshot, was during his first year at Uni in 2007, we did the shoot on the beach at Boscombe in the middle of December, it was freezing and he really did not enjoy the process, partly becuase there was an end of term hangover still making its presence felt, and the single figure temperatures.
No surprise it has taken 5 years to arrange another photoshoot. Having graduated from Bournemouth University in 2011 with a Bsc in Sports Management, Fraser wanted to combine a sports and business theme. With golf as one of his favourite sports, we had the beginnings of a shoot concept.
I wanted a lighting set up that had an element of drama. I admired the promotional images for this years Apprentice series, and appreciated the styling, and Fraser had seen a portrait of cricketer Kevin Peterson that he liked. These gave us the basis for setting up the lighting. I am also a great fan of US photographer Joel Grimes, who is famous for photographing sportsmen and ladies, in a studio, and then compositing them into a location background. Joels technique is ideal where the subject cannot get to the location for the shoot, or the weather conditons are poor. A lighting technique that Joel uses often is a high key light with 3/4 back lights on the subject to create a rim light, the latter is what makes the composite scenes so believable, because it creates the impression that the light is coming from the scene, and lighting the subject.
The images below are without the compositing, which at the time of writing in February 2012 the golf course that we want to use is not looking at its best and neither is the light. So watch out for a later blog on this subject in the spring for the final composited images. In the meantime the results of the studio set up are here, and at the bottom the beach shot taken 5 years earlier.
Tech spec
Key light: Large beauty dish set centrally high above the camera on a boom. By placing the key light on a boom it does not obstruct the view of the subject from the camera position.
Rim lights: Two 130x30cm gridded softboxes positioned at ground leval as 3/4 backlights to give rim highlights on the clothing and face but not on the top of the head, this would help later to create a realistic look when we created the composite image.
Strobes: 3x Bowens Gemini Pro heads, the short flash duration of the Pro heads are invaluable to freeze action like the golf ball being thrown into the air
1/125th sec@f11, ISO 100, Canon 5D MK2, Canon 24-70mm 2.8L
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