articles/Business/cod-dm-page3

Continuing Professional Development for photographers - part 3 of 1 2 3 4

by Damian McGillicuddy Published 01/12/2016

Then we wanted to stitch the photographic lie together, so we put an Elinchrom ELB400 inside a Rotalux Strip 90x35cm Soft-box and rotated it onto its side. We positioned it just to camera-right, hidden behind a pillar to flag the light, and that’s what’s creating the separation on the subject’s hair, jaw line, the top of his jacket and, importantly, the part of the seat behind him.

The next step was to take another strip soft-box and put it in the position to give us that lovely Rembrandt lighting pattern on the cheek. And the reason we used slightly smaller strip-boxes is that we’re still getting a relatively soft light, but the fall-off is more controllable; as you can see in the picture, by the time we come down from the hands to the legs, the fall-off of the light is greater. So we’re getting pleasant light on the face, but it’s a more controllable light as far as the rest of the image goes.

This was shot on the Olympus 12-40mm PRO Zoom lens, which I chose because we were on location and I didn’t know exactly how much space I would have to complete my composition. Here, for example, it was important to get the 'Diamond Club' text in the frame as well as the shaft of light, so in these situations the 12-40mm gives me a little versatility but without compromising quality in any way.

GOT LEMONS? MAKE LEMONADE

As noted, the whole point of continuous professional development is so that, no matter what you’re faced with or what the job throws at you, you’ll at least have half a clue as to how to make it work. And a case study of how important that really is, even to me with 30 years' experience under my belt, was at one of the last Roadshows we did in 2016 in Milton Keynes.

As is the default situation, we turned up at the venue not knowing what it would look like or how much space we’d have in which to work - or indeed, by the time we’d finished answering people’s questions, how long we’d actually have to shoot. Nothing new there. However, on top of that existing set of unknowns was the fact that my model had just had fairly major hospital surgery; James was a few weeks into recovery and was extremely limited in his mobility, barely able to raise his arms 90 degrees. In showing me how little movement he had, he noted, 'It’s a bit pathetic - I can just about put on a pair of headphones.' So that’s exactly what I had him do for the shot! Thanks to CPD giving me the knowledge and ability to think on my feet and work around a problem, we were able to design the whole concept of the picture around the very thing that was limiting what we could shoot.

The venue was a great big stage with a white wall behind it, so the Elinchrom ELBs came into their own with their portability and power. We tooled up an ELB with a standard reflector and diffuser on it, and put it on a stand pointing at the wall. To create that pure specular Photoshop 255 white background, we overexposed by about a stop (not the two to three stops I know you’ve probably read elsewhere!).

• Continuing Professional Development for photographers page 1
  
• Continuing Professional Development for photographers page 2
  
• Continuing Professional Development for photographers page 3
  
• Continuing Professional Development for photographers page 4
  

There are 42 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Wednesday 15th January 2025