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It's the New Year and already I'm burning the candle at both ends. Interview and shoot late last night with a couple in Beverly Hills for my "secret project", then up early this morning to drive two hours to snow covered Big Bear just outside Los Angeles.
The subject for todays and interviw was a mother and her six month old baby boy. I decided to kept the lighting simple but brought both my battery powered Pro 7B pack by Profoto and my Profoto Acute packs. It's always better to have the option to shoot in different ways and I wasn't sure if I should try to take a mother and baby outside in the snow, but I wanted to be prepared either way.
The drive to Big Bear was beautiful as I climbed the snow covered mountains to my subjects house. She lived right by the lake and it was covered with ice and snow and I thought it would be a perfect backdrop for a photograph but not such a good idea for a baby. I decided to simply shoot them inside their house. The moment I walked in I knew where I wanted to photograph them and started setting up. Like last night I used only one light. I brought two camera bodies as always and four lens but ended up using only two of the four. I love the Carl Zeiss 85 so I used that then switched to my 35-70. The zooms are new for me as I have used prime lens most of my career as I believe they are sharper, but I've fallen for this zoom and today I used it again.
After the shoot I set up my recording device and made sure to bring plenty of batteries this time so I wouldn't repeat last nights embarrassing mistake. Once my subject and I had our microphone on I started the interview. Normally I don't like crowds outside of my crew but my subjects had a house full of family to witness todays events and they were elated to watch the process.
The shoot and interview lasted about two hours and then I broke down my equipment and started back down the snow covered hill towards Los Angeles. My next subject will be the actress Debi Mazar so once home I'll give her a call to set up a time to photograph and interview her.
Stay tuned!
Camera: Sony A900
Lens: 85, 35-70
Strobes: Profoto Acute
Light reading: F5.6 @ 1/125
2 comments:
First time visitor...most of your photographs on your blog are incredible. These, I'm not so sure...they look really ordinary...like snapshots anyone could have taken. That's not a criticism as much as a confusion....any thoughts?
HI Christie,
Thanks for your comment. Well, these images are looking "different" than my others because they are for a special project so I'm making a bit different without all the hair, makeup, styling, etc. They will be retouched and cleaned up a bit before publishing but I like to share the raw images with those coming to my blog so they can see the process.
I want to thank you however for your comments because it has caused me to think about my process for this project and how to make it stronger.
Always Dream Big,
Matthew Jordan Smith
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