How I shot it: London colleague, Sam
I shot Sam and Catalina together. Sam, to put it frankly, kicks ass. We call him "Sam the man" and so the concept for his shoot was a bit of a superhero thing. I didn't want to go all the way to a costume - more like Superman in his office clothes.
Location
The most important thing for the shot of Sam was a dramatic sky. There were two problems with this:
- In London it's more than a little bit difficult to see much of the sky at once.
- Timing and weather were critical.
We scheduled end-of-the-day shoots for a few different days, and waited for the one with a nice cloudy sky. Location-wise there was only one really good option:a spot about a block from the office, across the street from the local pub. There's a railway yard behind a brick wall near there, which means, no buildings!
Lighting
Sam's lighting was a lot like Catalina's, but the balance between the flash and the ambient light was different. I needed to expose for the dramatic sky, but light Sam so he'd be a) visible, and b) the focus of the shot. In the end, this was shot at f/5.6, 1/80 second with the Speedlight lighting Sam through the Lastolite umbrella from just a few feet away.
I asked Sam to stand on the corner, on the sidewalk. The advantage of that is that the sidewalk cement is brighter than the asphalt, so it helped to separate him from the background. Also, it made it less likely that we'd be hit by a car.
Lens
I shot this with my 24-70L at 24mm. The wide angle is the key to including Sam's whole body while still showing a lot of sky. I would have gone wider, actually (my 16-35L was in my kit) but I was nearly showing the umbrella as it was. I shot this while sitting on the sidewalk near Sam.
Directing
This was fun - I had Sam try a variety of superhero-like poses. I just LOVE doing this kind of thing!
Post-processing
When I got this into post, there were only a couple of things to do:
- Add a heavy vignette
- Little bit of dodging and burning on Sam
- Minor dust corrections
During post, I wanted to slap myself for not thinking to try some colored gels on the Speedlite. Of course Sam needed to look like a human, but if I'd done that, I could have set the white balance for the gel color and come up with a purple sky or something. Next time!The final touch, as usual, was the caption. This was a nod to what you'll see later on with Jessie...