Next week I’ve arranged to spend an evening doing family Christmas portraits at a local school. Nothing too fancy, just the opportunity for a nice portrait and a print package at a good rate. The school is happy to offer this to its families and to the community at large as an outreach program, and I’m happy to shoot the photos & give folks an affordable way to preserve a memory. And as an added bonus, we’ll be donating 50% of the profits to a Christmas charity.
What it’s going to look like is this: it’s your typical elementary school gym, not too big, poorly lit, with a performance stage at the far end. My plan is to setup on the stage, which will lift me up away from the gym floor. Because let’s face it, it’s a gym and there’s going to be kids running around, so having lightstands and gear in a separate location is just safer.
For a backdrop I’ll have a lengths of white paper stretched on ropes between two volleyball posts. This is the school’s idea, the way they create backdrops for plays and performances, and it works out well since my BG stands and paper would never be able to accommodate large groups of people. And since these are going to be head & shoulder portraits, I don’t need a floor to ceiling BG.
As for adding some punch to the BG, I’ve considered several ideas. Originally there was talk of Christmas props being included, but that fell through. Then I flirted with the idea of using a projector to create a BG, but I’m not sure I can balance the projected light with the strobe lights and have it come out. So what I’m finally settling on is using a single BG light, aimed at the paper and gelled, to provide a splash of light and color that will spice it up a bit.
The subjects themselves will be lit by two lights, your standard 45/45 lighting setup, with shoot-through umbrellas. It’s simple, clean, and effective. Since I’m shooting all wireless now with the 7D acting as a commander, it’ll be easy to plug in a lighting ratio for the main and fill lights (groups A & B). This setup works best with a subtle ratio, probably 2:1 or less, with the BG light as group C, dialed up to exposure comp. +1 or so.
(Part of what I enjoy about this kind of work is right here, the conceptualization process that happens before the gear even comes out of the bag. A lot of folks starting out get all wrapped up in the numbers because that’s what seems to be important, especially when some jerk like me is quoting them off the top of my head like this. But the fact is, it’s a familiarity with the gear that lets me imagine what the numbers might be, and I’ll often come close. But I’m not fixating on them – if I start shooting and fine out that I really needed a 4:1 ratio with group C at +2.66, then I’ll make the adjustments and get back to shooting, never worrying for a moment that I “got the numbers wrong.” It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the image works. Knowing what the numbers might be just helps you narrow down the correct formula faster than a blind guess-&-check method.)
The downside to this kind of gig? Make no mistakes, there’s an assembly line element to it. I have, at most, 3 hours to shoot portraits of all the families who arrive. That may be 4 or it may be 40. In any gig, there’s a trade-off required. This time the trade-off is creativity in return for efficiency. I simply cannot afford to re-light every group that comes up on stage in a new and creative way (no matter how much fun it would be). We’d be there all night, and the cookies and hot chocolate simply won’t last that long.
With everything setup and tuned in, I could shoot a portrait every minute, no problem – several frames each, since someone will inevitably blink. But take into account the time it takes to get the next group up on stage, positioned in front of the BG, all adjusted and smiling, then cleared out, and I’m thinking that 1 group each five minutes will be a success. That figures to about 15 groups an hour, realistically, and probably 250 shots for the night. That’s a couple of nights worth of editing, done asap to get the images into the print lab’s system, ordered, and shipped before the holidays.
