What Chuck Does

Nail the shot. Rob a bank. Part II

About 2 weeks ago, I wrote about how nailing a shot makes you feel like you just got away with robbing a bank. I suspect the concepts that I had been learning were finally sinking in as I am now getting better at mentally picturing the shot before I take it as well as the execution behind the shot. Thus the second shoot for my brother’s MV “Danger” was quite easy.

That’s not to say that the shoot was not without it’s own set of challenges. I went hard with the light and strayed from the typical 45 degree upper camera right/left as well as the placement of the rim light/backlight that I typically use. Because of the distance between the couch and the wall, I had to shoot the rim light off the back wall. This in effect became my main light and I repositioned the original “main light” (a gridded SB-800) so that it would fill in parts of the legs. It didn’t take long to pull the shot though. Sadly, I no longer get the satisfaction of robbing a bank… light processing in Photoshop (some desaturation of the jeans, etc.) helped bring out the hard aspects of the image.

The challenge for the image below was that the mirrors made my lights very visible and I had to set them farther away than usual. The drawback for this was that my main light (SB-800 into silver brolly 45 degrees upper camera left) didn’t have enough juice to create the proper exposure. At full power and a good 10 feet from the subject, it was still not enough for a f/6.3 aperture at ISO200. I bumped the ISO to 400 and it barely made the cut. Thank God for my AB800 that’s on its way. The rim/hair/back light worked properly this time and created a nice little glow on the face. Light processing and desaturation again in Photoshop.

In conclusion, the 2 light setup is pretty standard now. I’d like to start venturing to where I’m more often than not working with a 3 light setup like with the Tennis Geek shoot. The shots above were each captured within 10 minutes between setup and takedown. That’s pretty quick seeing that Tennis Geek took nearly 2 hours from setup to takedown. Then again the time for wardrobe and makeup were not a part of the 2 shots above. Furthermore, when I’m shooting someone else, it’s a lot easier to chimp the back of the camera and adjust the lights. I think the other part of it is simply the adaptation and assimilation of the knowledge on hand - less time between vision and results.