Unexpected extra staff in urban location commercial shoot
On Sunday, we had a small commercial shoot in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. This was for one of my repeat clients, who designs and makes jackets in Boston area.
The model was Margaux, and the makeup and hair styling was by Chrissy. They did fantastic job, as their usual, which made my my work smooth and easy (the photos below are unretouched). Those skateboarders wanted to get in the pictures, but I am pretty sure my client has no use for their pictures, so why don't I make some use by sharing a picture of the unexpected extra staff participation with you? The shoot went smoothly, taking a good part of Sunday afternoon with the perfect sunny weather. Because I shot in a shade under the blue sky, the color temperature of the available light was close to 7000K! But by choosing the direction of the model's face, I could blend in some of the warmer colored lights reflected by nearby building to neutralize blue sky light, and then added a key light with a flash ("potato musher" driven with four NiMH C-cells; these deliver consistent light quality and the battery lasts much longer than the AA-driven flashes) bounced on a silver umbrella mounted on Manfrotto Combi boom stand. Initially, I was using a 41"x72" silver reflector to fill the shadow a bit, but because the wind was strong, I had to give it up and had the assistant stand by the light stand just in case strong wind knocks it. The painful part was that, I lost 3 reflectors when we left the location in front of RISD auditorium. I guess some RISD photography students picked them up - oh well. I had to place an order for replacement, which came to some $200! Ouch!!P.S. This is the shoot that was postponed since July 26th's posting below.
