Actually, I’m shooting for a couple of looks as the light changes.  For starters, I want to try some colorful, high-key portraits, which will be a combo of an umbrella key light and ambient sun backlight.  (For some great examples of this, check out MostlyLisa’s Flickr stream – her portraits rock!)

Later, as the light falls to twilight, I’m hoping to tryout McNally’s “How to Light an Elf” technique from The Hotshoe Diaries (checkout that chapter here on Google Books).  I won’t have a bridge in the background, but I am trying to workout a location that will show some city lights – or at the very least, some building lights showing through trees.

For this one, I figure on dropping the umbrella and trying a grid, which differs from how McNally shot it.  Dismissing the master’s technique in favor of my own sounds dumb, but who knows, maybe it will work.  And if not, then I’ll jump back to the umbrella and mutter my apologies to the photo gods!

So yeah, this is a short post with no photos (I did have some theory sketches, showcasing more of my mad drawing skills, but I lost them somewhere on my desk).  Sorry about that.  But with any luck, I’ll have satisfying results to share this weekend.

The goal is to get in, setup, and be ready and waiting by the time they’re all there so we can get them into position, arranged by families within the group, and shoot the thing before anyone starts to burn out.  Then we can disperse them to relax and do smaller family shots, without the tension of keeping everybody “on deck.”

The last time they had a group shot done, they all wore black and white, shot against a white wall, and processed the prints as B&W.  It’s a look that they like, so we’re recreating it this time.  The background will be a large off-white wall in the house, which I’ll blast to white and adjust in post.

Lighting will be in the form of a pair of Speedlites with shoot-through umbrellas, high up on the stands and shooting across the group, one from each side, with some feathering.  To keep everyone sharp, I’m going to need a small f-stop, f/8 or f/11, although the properties of a wide-angle lens will help maintain DOF.  The trick is to light everyone nicely, without head shadows, so between the umbrellas and the aperture, I’ll need to push out a lot of light – I wouldn’t be surprised if the Speedlites fire at half or even full power.

I’ll be using the 7D and shooting RAW, but I’ll have the Picture Style set to monochrome; it won’t affect the RAW file at all, but the preview image is always a JPEG, and will display in B&W with that setting, which will let me get an idea how the final photo will look after conversion.  Since we’re working in a confined space I’ll be using the 17-40mm L.

In a perfect world I’d be able to get a third Speedlite in behind the group, to both kick up the white wall and add some separation between it and the group.  I doubt I’ll have enough room for that here, so what I may do instead is put it camera-center on the boom stand and crank it down from overhead as a fill/booster.

Anytime that you’re working in a fixed space with a large group, you end up with two primary variables.  The first is, of course, the people – if you’ve got a good crowd that’s having fun with the process, your life is easy.  Happy people make good photos, whereas a group of people who’d rather not be there will look that way.  The second variable is the room; even when they tell you it will be a fairly open space, you can count on having to move photos off the walls, furniture out of the way, and distracting knick-knacks from the mantle.  It’s Murphy’s Law that there will always be a sofa in the exact spot you need to place a lightstand, so the trick is to come prepared – Justin Clamps, booms, and when all else fails, Voice-Activated Lightstands (also known as assistants).

In theory, this should be a straight-forward gig.  Hopefully reality plays out that way!

And sometimes, reality kind of stinks.

Take 2 of the family Xmas portraits involved doing them for my girlfriend’s family.  If you’ll remember, the concept was a good one; cycle people through a nice living room scene with a good lighting setup, and make some really nice group images.  That was the theory.

Reality turned out to be quite different.  Due to a breakdown in communication between the multiple planners on their side, and my girlfriend (not sure why they didn’t just call me directly?), they were expecting us to arrive 30 minutes before the time we had written down.  So needless to say, tempers were flaring, small children were burnt out already, and instead of a calm, orderly studio environment, I stepped into an outer ring of Dante’s Inferno.

Unexpected good weather made the family decide they wanted outdoor photos instead, but strong wind gusts and the sudden lack of a dedicated assistant made an off-camera Speedlite and umbrella impossible.  So I slapped the 580EX onto the 7D, dialed in a fill-flash compensation, and away we went, with each family picking their own backyard location.

Some of the shots went pretty well – this group let me work them into a band of shade, and while the lighting is still not very much sculpted, it does get the job done pretty well.

Others didn’t go as well as I would have liked.  The extreme dynamic range here means that even with the fill, the highlights are running too hot and the shadows block up.  Simply put, there’s too much contrast.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a terrible shot, it’s just not what I’d like to have made.

Ironically, that same issue results in a lack of contrast here.  The group opted for the shade to avoid the squinting problem, but put the sunlit backyard behind them, creating an over-contrast issue.  To solve that issue, I applied a Shadow/Highlight layer in Photoshop, which helped create some semblance of balance, but ate up too much contrast.  Suffice to say, this was a post-processing intensive set of images, and I’m not nearly as happy with them as I’d like to have been.

The only two that I am pleased with are these, taken of my girlfriend’s immediate family – her little sister suffered complete burnout at the original setting, so we went home to their house to finish their portraits.  Finally able to step back into a studio setup, I was able to setup a single Speedlite off-camera w/ and umbrella to create these:

I like this first one for the darker overall quality.  Originally I had wanted to merge it with a second shot, one taken at a longer exposure with the tree aglow, but my PS skills aren’t really up to that challenge, and more importantly, I don’t like doing things that way in the first place.  I’d rather get it right in camera (which was not going to happen due to an unhappy 4 year old).

The final image was even simpler; the same single Speedlite positioned high and almost directly in front of the subjects, just in front of me.  And I’ll even admit, believe it or not, that I used Live View to get this shot – it was the only way to see when little sister’s eyes were open and looking at me, since through the viewfinder I couldn’t always tell (the lights were dim from the last shot, still).

In a perfect world, I’d have been able to stick with the theory and gone with the well-planned studio setup.  Or at the very least, had the time and help to use and off-camera Speedlite outdoors.  But given the way things went down, the pictures were still taken – and that’s the main thing.

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.

Here’s one thing you don’t need a specialized version of – a background.

If this sounds counterintuitive, it isn’t. Although there are plenty of vendors ready to sell you everything from sheet paper to expensive muslin backgrounds, the reality is that you don’t need them. You have all the background you need already around you.

This shot wasn’t taken in a studio. It wasn’t taken at a state park, or a preserve, or a garden. It was taken in someone’s backyard.

The simplest setup needs only a blank, white wall. If you’re doing head-and-shoulder style portraits, and you place your model several feet from the wall and then light both independently, you’ll have a nice portrait. Let’s say you get fancy and put a color gel on the BG light, then shoot it through something (glasses, a plant, etc) to add some shadow textures – at this point, you’ve completely left the realm of “mugshots.” For proof, take a look at the Stobist site, where David Hobby regularly turns the walls of hotel conference rooms into BGs. If you can do it with a Holiday Inn, you can do it anywhere.

Personally, I don’t like artificial BGs nearly as much as I like natural ones. In my latest portrait shoot, I used white roll paper in the studio and got some great shots. But my favorite frames came afterwards, when we were doing the last few outside. And we didn’t go anyplace exotic to get them – far from it, we were in a side yard.

As you can see from my sketch, this is your fairly typical, rural yard. We’ve got our big pine tree with the rope swing as a central point, but surrounding it we’ve got the house, a fire pit, a pile of kid toys, a horse trailer, and a fenced-in pasture. Some elements, like the pasture, could be useful as a BG (most places will lack a pasture, but a garden, or a small wooded/brushy area will work just as well). Most of the other features, not so much – nobody really wants a pile of kids toys in their senior portrait.

The key then is to setup your shot so that this distracting stuff isn’t visible. Sure, you could clone it out later, but why bother? It’s far easier to just get it right in-camera. In this case, I was lucky – the sun was already down near the tree line, so I was able to work in any direction I wanted without worrying about flare.

For the rope-swing shots, I setup with the pasture in the BG – it’s an area that will go nicely out of focus without any distracting elements. The kids toys and fire pit got hidden behind the pine tree; the house was kept out of the other side of the frame by the focal length.

Next, we shot some with the model up on the front porch. It’s a nice porch, which helps, but still we don’t want to see a lot of it. So I had her stand by one of the vertical posts and shot through some ornamental grass. The BG goes dark, and the foreground elements help disguise the location.

Turn it around with the model sitting on the porch rail, and the same trick still applies; the focal length keeps some hanging plants out of sight, the horse trailer is hidden behind the model, and the toys go far enough out of focus to pretty much disappear.

I guarantee you, you can walk into any backyard in your area and find several backgrounds against which you can shoot good portraits. It may take a little creativity, you may even have to accept that some elements are there and work them into the overall shot – but it can be done.

Remember – zoom in to discard distractions, play with angles to exclude elements, and find ways to hide things in plain sight.

** For all the photos here, I’m using the 400D & 28-135mm lens at 1/200th, f/5.6, ISO 200. A single strobe with a shoot-through umbrella provides key light, while the ambient provides fill.

The main portion of the shoot was studio-based and went pretty much as predicted, although there were some early issues to overcome. The home-office space that I used wasn’t quite as large as I would have liked, but worked better than any other option I had. Ideally the room would have been longer, to put more space between the model and backdrop.

On the other hand, that would have caused yet more problems, as my roll of background paper isn’t wide enough as it is. In fact, it was causing such problems during the setup test shots done with my assistant for the day, Mandy, that I ended up supplementing it. The quick fix was to cut off the length of paper, then roll out another. I overlapped the two pieces, taping the cut-off piece to the backdrop stand and the roll sheet using painter’s tape. (There was a seam line, but the BG light helped hide it, and a quick use of the Heal tool in Photoshop fixed the rest.)

As we were just about to get started – as in, the model had just arrived – the lightstand holding the BG light took a fall, and in slow motion I watched the flash explode – batteries, battery door, and baseplate all blew off. In an amazing bit of luck, the flash’s internal workings were undamaged, and I was able to jam the battery door back on. The baseplate plastic was broken, however, so instead of mounting it back to the light stand, Mandy became my voice-activated lightstand for the duration of the shoot.

A side note – of my three Nikon Speedlights, the other two already have homemade base plates on them. One I broke after buying and the other I got cheap because of the broken plate. Since I won’t ever use these on camera, it was no big deal to open up the bottoms, remove the hotshoe connections, and glue on a dummy baseplate – a piece of plastic the right size and shape, so they can still mount to the lightstands.

Using the clamshell lighting I talked about in the pre-game post, I shot four different outfits, each in a variety of poses, with some differences in the BG lighting. The BG light varied between 1/4 and 1/16 power, depending on the colored gel or lack thereof. The clamshell strobes were set to 1/4 and 1/8. All were shot with a Canon 400D & 17-40mm lens combo at 1/200th, f/4, & ISO 200.

Clamshell lighting really is a great technique – the effect is smooth and well diffused, and shadows are minimized, especially against a white BG. It’s also easy to setup and work with – the lighted area is actually fairly large, so small movements in the model’s position don’t require resetting of the strobes.

After packing up the studio, we made a quick stop at the client’s grandparent’s house, where we did a few more outdoor shots. We were looking to capitalize on the foliage – aided by the lovely afternoon weather – and we weren’t disappointed. A rope swing in the side yard became the main site, and lit by a single flash, we were able to capture some amazing shots!

The outdoor shots are lit once more by a single strobe with a shoot-through umbrella, held aloft by my assistant. I was shooting at the max sync speed, f/5.6, ISO 200, with the flash on either full or 1/2 power to balance out the afternoon ambient.

I still cannot recommend this technique enough – once you nail down the ratio of strobe to ambient – this took me about a minute’s worth of test shots – it remains constant as long as the light doesn’t change. (And even then, gradual shifts in lighting are easily compensated for on-camera.)

All told, I took over 500 photos during the afternoon. Edited down, the client will only get a fraction of that number – but still, I don’t envy their job of picking the ones they want printed!

And as I said last time, I’m used to working with a P&S part of the time, out of convenience or chance.  I got some feedback on that post and it seems that others out there can relate.

So I got to thinking, “Let’s take this a step further – what else do we have to work with?”  The answer is – space.

We all have space, usually in limited quantities and strange configurations that lead us to quickly decide that it isn’t well suited to photography.  So instead of using our space, we sit around and bemoan our lack of a studio to work in.

Most of us don’t need studios.  As much as I’d love to have one, right now even I don’t really need one.  I’m lucky enough to have a huge living room with 10′ ceilings in my apartment, which generally goes unused.  I can set up a backdrop and lights and have just enough room to do what I need.

But how about those of you who don’t have backdrops and studio gear, who simply have a camera, a single artificial light source (strobe, work light, living room lamp), and an average room?  Can you still make good portraits?

Frankly, that’s not the question I’m interested in asking, because I know what the answer is- of course you can!  What I really want to know is, given an average room and a single artificial light source, how many portraits can you make?

(I keep saying “artificial light source” for a reason; so long as you’re shooting during the daytime, you are guaranteed to have the sun as a natural light source.  So really, with both the sun and an artificial light, you have two lights to work with.)

In my living room, the answer turns out to be at least nine.  My living room is large, but also rather featureless, and shows a surprising dearth of furniture.  Since I’m also plagued with a lack of models, I used my girlfriend, Mandy.  I shot everything with my wide angle lens and a single off-camera Speedlight through a white umbrella.

If you don’t have strobes, use a regular lamp.  Take off the lampshade for hard, direct light; keep the lampshade on for semi-diffused light; and put a white bed sheet between the bare lamp and the subject for a softbox effect.

Keep in mind that these were shot quickly as the light was fading outside.  On an afternoon with bright sunlight streaming into the room, the images would come out entirely different.  In another room, they’d look entirely different.  The point here is that there are many variables, all of which can be manipulated to achieve a new set of images.

So there you have it – simple and requiring no fancy tools and no specialized space.  Anyone can do this, with any camera, in any room.

Specifically, we have very few MEANINGFUL shots of the people we love.  Oh, we all have a few hundred unsorted snapshots from Christmas and birthdays and the 4th of July – but how many meaningful, well-made, emotional portraits do you have?

I know that I don’t have nearly enough.  In my time as a photographer, I have taken exactly one meaningful shot of my mother (which I mentioned in my Valentine’s Day portrait post).  I have one meaningful shot of my girlfriend, and one of my best friend, both of which are candids taken almost by accident.  I don’t have a single meaningful shot of my father or my brother.  Nor of my grandparents.

This doesn’t seem right to me.  I’ve spent countless hours around these people with a camera.  I’ve had them in the same room as my studio setup.  I’ve even practiced lighting techniques on them while they’ve been doing homework or paying bills – so why in the world haven’t I ever asked them to take 15 minutes for a really nice portrait?

I don’t really know the answer to that.  I have plenty of excuses, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve missed opportunities.

I bring this up because twice now I’ve read posts by other photographers who have waited to take portraits of their loved ones, and ended up waiting too long.

Check out Zach Arias’ thoughts on the subject, and the portraits that it spurred him into making.  I’ve mentioned Zach before; he’s an excellent photographer and keeps up a great blog that covers everything from the technicals to ideas like this.

And definitely check out Days with My Father, a photo essay by Philip Toledano about his aging father, who no longer has a short term memory.  It’s an emotional set of images, and one of the best photo essays I’ve yet seen.

MAKE PORTRAITS OF THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE.  Make them in window light of the person’s favorite room; make them outside at their favorite spot; make them in the studio against a backdrop.  Whatever you do, just make the portraits while you still have the opportunity.

I know I will.

So what if you want to ditch the rampant commercialism and do something really sweet for Valentine’s Day?  The choices aren’t as well publicised, but they are out there – and here’s one of them.  Instead of candy and roses and any of the other cliche gifts, get your portrait taken.  A 5×7 glossy is a great way to remind the one you love that, well, you love them.  It lasts longer than candy and doesn’t have to be watered for a week.

Levity aside, a portrait really is a great idea – if the love of your life is a working person, a portrait of you on their desk will surely brighten their day.  If you’re doing the distance relationship thing, a portrait on the bed stand will be the last thing they see when they fall asleep and the first thing they wake up to – not the same as being there, but at least it’s a start!  Even if you’re both already living together, a nice portrait on the wall helps to make a house into a home.

Last year I shot this Hollywood glamour style portrait of my mother; she gave it to my father and to her parents as a Valentine’s gift.  They all loved it, and even asked for extra prints so they could have one in different offices/houses.  It really was the perfect gift – something different, and something from the heart.

But it really doesn’t have to stop there – if you won’t want your portrait taken alone, bring your better half along too.  Couples portraits are always nice to have at home, and to share with the family.  Think about it – when’s the last time you and your “significant other” had your picture taken together (no, Facebook-style self-pics don’t count)?  Don’t you think it’s about time to have a nice one done?

And if you’re a photographer yourself, this is the perfect chance to entice your love in front of the lens – and join them!  Set up some lights, practice some studio work, but above all else, have fun doing this together!