Anytime I get an assignment for a magazine I like to talk to the art director to get some input for the design. The AD wanted energy, excitement, and plenty of options to choose from to fill the cover and inside story. They also wanted me to create my own look and come with my own ideas.
So since I only had an hour with the subject and had very limited space, I was able to create a few different looks and I will show two of them to you.
So for this shot I used an Alien Bee Ring light for my main key light. I exposed for Louie’s face at f8 @ 1/125th of a second. I went ahead and changed my shutter speed to 1/200th of a second to make sure there was no ambient light that would affect my picture. I chose an aperture of f8 because I wanted the congo’s and Louie to be sharp and not out of focus. My other two lights were set to about 1.5 stop hotter at f14. This creates the hard rim light and also gives the photo the feeling of him being on stage with lights beaming down on him. The ring light fills in the rest of photo with soft even lighting with no shadows. I also shot this photo with my Kodak DCS Pro
For this photo I just made a few changes to give it a different look. I also made sure that there was enough room to add copy around the image if needed.
I shot this photo at f2.8 @ 1/60th of a second. I used an Alien Bee 800 with a 22 inch beauty dish. I shot this with a Nikon D90 with an 80 – 200mm lens.
The reason I opened up my lens was because I wanted to get a little more depth in the photo. I wanted the instrument out of focus and because of the slower shutter speed create just a little movement. Louie was great with his action. I just told him to play and let me capture him doing what he does best.
Here is the final cover shot. If you have any questions please just ask or if you want to hire me for an assignment visit my web site M329.com
