Advice for corporate portrait

bobiscuit

bobiscuit

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Need to take a portrait of a CEO.

Will be using Sony A350 and most probably 50mm f/1.8 lens.

Have a decent Sony flash and an old manual flash with eBay wireless trigger that doesn't work so well.

Will probably be a head & shoulders type of thing, with a background that's not too distracting or interesting.

Any advice or examples to follow?
 
bobiscuit said:
Need to take a portrait of a CEO.

Will be using Sony A350 and most probably 50mm f/1.8 lens.

Have a decent Sony flash and an old manual flash with eBay wireless trigger that doesn't work so well.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a recipe for disaster - "could you just stand there for 10 minutes Mr CEO, whilst I faff around trying to get the lights to fire?"
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Have a look at Strobist or Kirk Tuck's work :thumbs:
Click to expand...

some great work right there :)

I'd be very tempted to sack off flash completely if the triggering's a bit dodge, and just hit up the 50mm 1.8, can get some great results nice and simply :)

failing that, bounce off the ceiling, real nice light dead easily :)
 
Bounce off ceiling and shallow-ish DOF was my basic plan. No distracting background, nice even light.

My less basic plan was a more direct light on the face, and the second flash lighting up the centre of the background.

Like this from Kirk Tuck (thanks for the link FITP :)): Clicky

But I'm sure that took a lot more than pointing one flash at face and one at background :D
 
bobiscuit said:
Bounce off ceiling and shallow-ish DOF was my basic plan. No distracting background, nice even light.

My less basic plan was a more direct light on the face, and the second flash lighting up the centre of the background.

Like this from Kirk Tuck (thanks for the link FITP :)): Clicky

But I'm sure that took a lot more than pointing one flash at face and one at background :D
Click to expand...

Well...err....now that you mention it he tends to use 3 or 4 or 5 or.........:nuts:
 
Have you asked what the CEO wants? :)

What does the company do and does he/she want that represented in the pic?

Some are getting a little less stuffy and don't actually want to be seen as some boring unapproachable paper pusher. Don't assume everyone wants a boring grey old fashioned head shot. They may really want one doing in the warehouse or manufacturing area or sat on the edge of a desk or outside the premesis lit with OCF...................

In short, make sure whatever you do is what they want!
 
Before you plan your kit it might be an idea to make sure you know and understand the brief? :)
 
I did one of these for my dad recently, in my parents lounge, and with a single flash, 50mm lens. it was pin sharp
if you want to see it just PM me...it's linked on here somewhere anyway.

I would go tripod, decent aperture, f4 or more
focus point on the face
be just above level with him/her to minimise any double chins
normal stance is to sit them on a chair at 45 degrees to you and turn to the camera.
if you have a change, test the lighting out on yourself etc. do you have a volunteer to shoot first? so you don't mess him around oh and shoot raw..

with two lights? i would diffuse the light following the angle on his face, then on the other side, have a more distant flash to eliminate shadow behind him/her and just fill in the shadows a bit
 
Was playing with the manual flash and eBay wireless trigger this morning. Turns out it works OK, it was my fault that I was having problems.

I forgot about the pre-flash when using TTL. If I shoot with my Sony flash in manual mode, problem solved :).

Unfortunately I can't use the wireless function on the on-board flash to trigger both. It triggers the Sony one fine, but the eBay wireless trigger fires too early :thumbsdown:. Still, Sony flash hooked up to camera by cable, and cheap old flash lighting up the background wirelessly. Should allow for some creativity I hope :thinking:
 
Maybe turn up early and borrow his PA to do a few test shots in the space he wants shooting to get your lighting right?
 
AliB said:
Have you asked what the CEO wants? :)

What does the company do and does he/she want that represented in the pic?

Some are getting a little less stuffy and don't actually want to be seen as some boring unapproachable paper pusher. Don't assume everyone wants a boring grey old fashioned head shot. They may really want one doing in the warehouse or manufacturing area or sat on the edge of a desk or outside the premesis lit with OCF...................

In short, make sure whatever you do is what they want!
Click to expand...

First thing I always ask them. ie "do you want traditional (read boring) style, or something a bit different"?

For traditional style I go with a fairly simple 2 light set up, 1 brollied front left or right (high) and one rear either pointing at the background or skimming past back of head to give a bit of pop.

Quick example:



Clicky linky if not showing
 
talk to him...keep moving...keep the subject moving as well trying different poses and positions
this ups the statistics for a cool relaxed shot which he will like

and keeps you from self urinating
 
Right, part 1 is done. Unfortunately he didn't have much time so I could only get a couple of the shots I was planning. We will do more later.

And... I've been playing with my new umbrella softbox, wireless triggers, etc. all week and they've been working flawlessly and I got some really nice test shots!

Then, today, get set up, and - nothing :(.

Fiddle around for a while, try again - only one trigger works.

Fiddle again, try all channels, etc. - nope.

So revert to bouncing the Sony flash and having second flash with optical trigger - but for some reason the flash "froze" when it was attached to the trigger (couldn't change any settings) and would only fire once, then I'd have to pull it off and stick it back on.

Typical :bang:


Anyway, I think I got a couple of decent ones, and with a bit of processing I hope I will improve them further...
 
see other thread...or else
 
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