On location photoshoot result

You may remember that I published a piece here detailing how I carried out a quick photo shoot for Nobel Biocare magazine at the dental practice of Dr R. Sleiter?

At the end of that article Iwrote "It will be interesting to see which image they use in the magazine."

Well this morning I received a few complementary copies of the magazine and I've reproduced the page layout where they used my image below.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We may live in the digital age, but nothing beats seeing your work in print.

Thanks for reading.

On location portrait photoshoot

I received an email from the pharmaceutical company Nobel Biocare asking if I would be free to take some portraits of a dentist for an article that they will soon be publishing.

When I  responded positively that I was available, I was sent details of the shoot and the requirements of the image that was needed. Basically it was a vertical format, preferably three quarters or head and shoulder with a slightly out of focus background. Another proviso was that the dentist shouldn't be wearing his work clothes. 

All very straight forward except it was to be taken in his surgery during business hours. There would be patients in the vicinity. I decided to travel light and although all my gear remained in my car, I used only my 5d MKII with my new 24 - 105 zoom, a Speedlite 430 EX2 and an interesting diffuser that I picked up on a Swiss auction site for a few Francs. I love this device as it gives a lovely almost shadow free light.

The new diffuser in place

I arrived half an hour early at the practice and looked around whilst Dr Sleiter tended to business. As the background had to be slightly soft, I looked for a location that had something on the walls that wouldn't detract too much. I saw two rooms that I thought would be suitable for the image. In one room, the ambient light was measured at 1/80sec at f5.6 and the other recorded 1/200 sec at f5. These apertures were chosen to render the background as slightly out of focus.

When Dr Sleiter was free, he changed out of his dentist clothes and selected a shirt which (in my opinion) wouldn't clash with the surroundings or background.

We started in the first  room and I selected 1/80sec at f5.6 manually on the camera. The walls weren't white and this was seen in the image as the flash reflected from them. The resulting image is warm, which I quite like.

 

 1/80sec @ f5.6 with flash

My only concern was the background. I wasn't sure if it would distract too much on the magazine page where it was appearing.

After a couple of more pictures we moved to one of the surgeries where it was a lot brighter. I started (with the settings established earlier) with a head and shoulders of Dr Sleiter standing then I had an idea. What about making the foreground out of focus?  

1/200 @ f5 with flash

 To be safe, I first asked him to sit on one of the dental chairs and I took a head and shoulders pic of him.

 1/200 @ f5 with flash

Then I swung the dental equipment in front of him to give some sort of "meaning" to the image. This is my favourite of the bunch as it immediately says to me "dentist in his environment".

All in all an enjoyable assignment that went very smoothly with the minimum of equipment and setting up.

It will be interesting to see which image they use in the magazine.

Thanks for reading.

Take some time out

I was on my way to work last Friday when I saw this beautiful sunrise.

I am by nature not an early bird so I'm thankful for the Winter mornings when the sun can be seen (weather permitting) rising.

I parked beside the church in our village because this afforded me an elevated view on the sunrise. I used my EF 50 mm lens and selected a speed of 1/160 to let me handhold it. The aperture chosen by the camera (in TV mode) was f5.6 The ISO speed was 400.

I ran the RAW file through Canon's DPP programme and sharpened it up a bit. The shadows were lightened just a touch and the saturation increased slightly. What you see here is as near to reality as I can get it.

When I record things like this, I am glad that I have such a passion for photography and that nature constantly provides me with such great subject matter.

Thanks for reading