Staff Portraits for Erskine College

I was asked the other day to take portraits of new staff members for Erskine College. We obviously wanted nice images and the best setting is to use the picturesque campus with the administration building they work in as the backdrop. The time of day was less than ideal, around 11:15 am (and about 500 degrees) but there was plenty of shade. The trick would be to tone down the bright building in the background and find some balance with the subjects.

I set the shutter speed to 1/250th and dialed down the aperture to get a decent exposure in the building in the background that had a lot of hot-white surfaces. In order to balance the exposure on the subjects, I needed a full burst from my SB-800. The problem with that is it takes a good while for the flash to cycle at full burst. So I tried something I haven't tried before and used a spare umbrella adapter on the Westcott 60" umbrella shaft to mount an additional SB-600 flash. I could set the flashes to half power and get the same power with more on tap if needed and a much faster cycle time between shots. It worked like a dream.

I now see the appeal of something like the Lastolite Triflash Sync that David Hobby reviewed on the strobist. I had to use two PocketWizard II's to fire my flashes. It would have been nice to just be able to use just one trigger for both (or more).

I used the Nikon D700 for all of these images and most of them I shot with the Nikkor 35-70mm f2.8. The more I use this lens, the more I like it. It is clunky and old, a lot of the marks have been worn away and it is noisy but it is so sharp. But for the pictures above and below, I used the Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VRI at a longer focal length to get more isolation for the tighter compositions.

The whole session was only about 20 minutes but with this setup and two lenses, I could get a good variety of shots which is important. Even though the impending need for these images were for business cards, you never know when you will be able to get these people in front of you again. You are much better off thinking of future needs by taking a variety of shots including some with plenty of negative space if you ever need to drop in some copy for other marketing needs. You can view more from the set, you can see them here. These aren't going to change the world but it is what we needed and gave us some stock to use for other purposes in the future.

Shane Bryant Portraits

Shane Bryant is a long-time friend of mine. He is a gifted and talented ceramic artist who owns The William Felton School of Crafts in the west end of Greenville, South Carolina. He needed some photographs of him at his school for various media needs. I jumped at the chance to shoot him in his environment.

We took some out side shots featuring the front of his school/studio and then went inside to get some images of him surrounded by his work.

Using a Westcott 28" softbox on Shane and a 60" shoot-through umbrella for the back wall helped control the light a little. I wanted you to see his work but separate him from the background at the same time. 

Framing Shane with his work was important and took some maneuvering so you could see it but not have anything protruding out of his head and body.

After getting the straightforward posed shots, we let Shane do what he does best and throw some pots and get some images of him at work. These could be a bit more dramatic, so I just used one light in a Westcott 28" softbox.

It was amazing to watch him work. Working clay for him is so second-nature that he flies through it. It was tough going from shot to shot because the work transforms so fast. I pretty much shot as fast as I could changing up the framing to capture a good variety. The detail shots, which are normally a pretty mundane necessity, reveal the colors, textures and techniques involved in the work.