lighting scheme I
The session was commissioned by the Catalan Corporation of Audiovisual Media for Catalunya Radio. The idea was to take a group photo of the main presenters of the radio station who will be with us all summer long on the radio.
Many location options were considered for this summer idea, but in the end we chose the terrace of the Olha Hotel, which has fantastic views of the city and an outdoor pool.
The big challenge of this photograph was that we could only work from 8 to 9 in the morning, as it was then open to guests. Not only was the group photograph to be taken, but also individual portraits of each of them, with and without a microphone, had to be taken. And, in addition, make them all up. Timing was very tight, but we were able to solve it in time.
The other challenge was that the sun was very intense and backlit at that time of day. For this reason I decided to work with a Profoto D2 flash, which besides being very powerful, recharges to full power in a very short time.
I fitted the Profoto D2 with a large octagonal window, the 5″ Octa Softbox, which allowed me to generate a very diffused light while still being wide enough to cover the bodies of the nine people at close range.
The session began by measuring the ambient light, in this case that of the sun. The additional drawback of this session was that the day was cloudy and at times the sun would come out and at other times it would hide in the clouds. Perhaps this was the most difficult part of the assignment, since we were looking for an image that conveyed the idea of summer, and with a cloudy background it was difficult.
I decided to start with the individual portraits of whoever was already made up, while the rest of the speakers were being made up, in order to save time in the short session that awaited me. I exposed so that the sky would have detail and then adapted the power of the Profoto D2 to that situation. Despite the fact that the large octa window absorbs quite a bit of light, the D2 responded successfully and was able to match and overcome the large amount of light emitted by the Sun.
Finally, I added in post production some yellow dominance to the ground to support the summer idea. Eight individual portraits with microphone variants, plus a group photo at an exact time. Not bad. Sometimes we look like firefighters putting out fires at breakneck speed. These are the circumstances that this profession sometimes causes us. Fortunately Profoto efficiently helps us to solve it always with great safety.
lighting scheme I
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