I was wondering if you had any time today to take a quick photo?
nothing super fancy, I just found out I have just won a prestigious award and they would like a photo of me in my lab working.
oh and I'm getting on a plane to Australia in 2.5 hrs and will be gone for a months holiday.
I'm on my way.
so there you have it.
I grab my go kit check the battery and memory card situation and hit the streets running.
luckily the lab where all this was to take place is only 2 short blocks from the world headquarters.
so 2 sb900's D3 with 28-70mm f2.8, 35mm f2 couple light stands, pocket wizards,Apollo soft box,calumet 5 in 1 reflector, gels,the bag of tricks and the BIG umbrella.......
not to much stuff... hopefully enough to do the job.
I arrive and meet the wonderful Maria Koulmanda Phd.
She is a really sweet person, brilliant,funny and rushed for time at the moment.
she's literally getting on a plane to Australia in 2 hrs to spend Christmas with her 94 year old father.
so she shows me the photo brief.....
standard stuff 300 dpi jpeg of her in a white coat in a lab.
Grand, we can do this.
she shows me the lab space and........turns out people are mostly gone for the Holidays and.....
the Lab she is in, well... a large portion are leaving for a different medical center.
so it's empty....
kind of weird...like an empty house.... I never have this problem...usually there is to much stuff in the way, here there is not enough....
Well now... this is her bench... she is leaving for a month+ holiday....not much there...so
I tell her I'm going to be a few moments setting up and we might need her to be doing something in her lab space.... turns out she is going over the last 6 months of notes and planned on doing that during her 20+ hours in the air.... so she scammpers off to grab the notes and I set about making this blah lab look interesting...
I'm going to want a BIG sorce.
that window in the back is giving my plenty of spill and fill for the background but I want the main light to fill a little bit of the shadows on the shelves.I don't want to give it it's own light because I like the fall off and the mix.
plus there isn't as much "Lab Stuff" back there so a bit on the darker side helps hide that...
BIG umbrella it is!
60" with a SB900 at 1/4 power to start.
Based on that test above I'm going to want a small amount of fill on her shadow side closest to the bench. I could get away with it like this... but I don't think it would look as good.
now if she was a RUGGEDLY Handsome male Australian PhD those shadows might look cool... and more shall we say "BADASS"
But she is quite the lady...Heals and lab coat...I wouldn't want to do that to her.
so here's the final set up. Second SB900 on a stand with a diffuser set to 1/32 power.
It also has a 1/4 cut of CTO on it
Just a Flick of light to open up the shadows and warm up the face.
we have clouds outside in the sky a nice lab full of "Lab Stuff"
a Pretty lady as our subject,with the shadow of her hair framing her face nicely.
nice catch lights in her eyes and a nice softer light that evens out any unwanted shadows.
the only real problem I had was getting her to stop laughing... she got a bit of the giggles at one point.
She
