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It’s not often you get to shoot magazine covers so of course I jumped at the chance. The thing about magazine covers is that it’s never boring, unknown or obscure. The cover sells no matter what people, your parents, your boyfriend/girlfriend, teacher, BFF tell you. People do judge the book (or in this case, magazine) by the cover. So if a magazine wants to survive in today’s mostly digital, online world, the cover has to do its job.
So obviously, this contemporary Christian magazine still has to do what other magazines do. Put someone well-known on the cover versus someone else. Anyways, people who make magazine covers usually don’t have time for photographers to fuss over the shots. They give you thirty minutes and you better nail the thing down or it’s bye-bye, and you’ve got tons of P&P (Photoshop & Prayer) to save the crap you just shot.
For Winnie, my appointment was 5pm and I showed up at her Mid-valley studio at just a quarter past four. Ten minutes to introduce myself to the receptionist, scout around. She’s a genuinely nice lady and really simple and down to earth so she actually meets me, gets her assistant to make me coffee and ask me my shoot ideas. Since we’re not shooting for Business week, including the studio logo and name is out of the question so she thinks two of my ideas work out and offers a room. I see the a couple of possibilities there so she goes off and I setup.
To keep things fluid, fast, and portable, I throw up a Lastolite EzyBox on a Manfrotto 1052BAC stand. Since I’ve no time to fuss with line-of-sight crap, I shove on my RadioPopper PXs on a Canon 580EXII flash.
Clock hits five and it’s action time. Took a couple of frames, moved a to a glass door and bam, much better than the textured wall. Still not getting it. The editor said beauty so here’s this E&Y Entrepreneur of the year winner, savvy business woman and beautiful at the same time. I didn’t want to position her too hard so I changed ideas, asked her to sit and put her hands together. EzyBox up close, my favorite 70-200 2.8 lens at f/3.2, dialed in +2/3EV to factor in all the white and my 5D Mark II’s brain took care of the rest. Did a couple more but I knew I had the cover.
The first shot, I like the textured wall so I had a tight grid on the flash head to create a natural vignette. Flash head zoomed to 70mm.
The logo for A Cut Above featured blue glass with horizontal texture so this door reminds me of the logo in a subtle way so that’s the reason for the backdrop. Felt something lacking and the don’t really like the door frame so next…
The cover shot here. Flash down -1EV with +2/3 for ambient. I did soften this in LR3 a bit for a final but this is exactly what I got out of the camera. Notice I left space at the top for the Magazine masthead. I shot three of the same, with space on the left and right.
Did a standing shot but it’ll didn’t excite me so that’s wrap. And a couple of shots which they also ran inside for the article.
The Lastolite EzyBox hotshoe is a great piece of portable flash modifier. After being introduced to it, I must say that it’s one of my favorite photographic accessory I carry around frequently. My only complaint is that it doesn’t mount a RadioPopper PX flash easily. However, I have discovered a way how to get your RadioPopper and EzyBox hotshoe to work together here. I also frequently get RadioPopper PX units imported into Malaysia. I love my RadioPoppers.
Above, my RadioPopper PX Receiver mated to my EzyBox Hotshoe and ready to go. Below, some fun shots I just did this afternoon of my niece.
For the shots above, the EzyBox was held pretty close to Julia, just out of the camera frame. Vintage color processing but basically, un-cropped, straight out of camera exposure.
More...Taking family portraiture is fairly straightforward if the family is looking for standard group shots where everyone’s kinda looking at the camera. Nothing fancy and it doesn’t stretch the artistic brain very much. It is however important to the older generation as I’ve experienced. While the younger (read the couple or one or two others) folks might like a more arty kind of portraiture, the older folks would buy a larger (12 x 16) print if everyone was grouped traditionally and looking right at the camera.
So, I had twenty minutes and several combination of people to shoot. First thing is what’s important in the location, in this case, the family home. Obviously, the antique Chinese name plate. Sadly, I don’t read Chinese and I rely exclusively on Google. For the two sample shots I posted below, I had two 580EX II flash units firing into reflective umbrellas to even out the light. It is obvious that everyone is standing in the shade. In order to balance back the light as the outdoor light is obviously warmer than my flash, a half-CTO gel was placed on each flash.
A couple of tests showed that things were fine except that the built in spotlights on the sign board were not bright enough when you’re shooting at noon, f/5.6 and 1/125 shutter speed. I couldn’t drag the shutter any longer as it’s noon. Gel in another flash to hit the signboard. This was zoomed to 105mm to tighten the light being thrown out. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a snoot, as you can see even at 105mm, there was visible spill.
Finally, Malaysian hair is typically dark and the dark brown door doesn’t help things so another flash unit placed behind the group shots and we were good to go. If I’d do this again, would I do it differently? Well, of course. A snoot would have improved the signboard flash. That flash was in group B and one-stop under compared to my group A flashes (in brollies) so I would have probably dropped it down another half-stop. Might also be fun if I gelled that flash red (and maybe the one firing at the door. Again all this wouldn’t be accomplished without my RadioPoppers. Canon’s wireless flash lacks that reliability needed in this circumstance.
Lighting group shots has always been a challenge especially when the location is not exactly the best or the ambient light fairly low. The other problem when you’re using studio strobes with flash detect triggers is that someone down in the group with a flash will also trigger your strobe. Could have lit the entire group with five 580EX IIs actually but I’ll need the softboxes or reflectors to smooth out the light. Anyways, for the last minute shoot, my radio triggers were on loan to a good friend who needs it more than I do. All I needed was my Mark II, a 16 foot high aluminum folding A-frame ladder, two strobes and a 580EX II on full power on the camera. Ah, you start seeing the distorted people with at the edges with my 16mm lens. Need a higher ladder!
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