 MATTHEW PARKER |
Lighting for Business Job Hello All, A client wants me to shoot some photos of his yogurt stores for brochures and general advertising purposes. This is a new area for me in terms of lighting, as I have focused on outdoor photography in the past. I still prefer natual lighting, and it appears the stores have plenty of windows, but was wondering if I should rent some general lighting gear for this job. If so, what is recommended? As a last resort, I can use my on-camera flash but I know that is not recommended. Thanks, Matt
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John H. Siskin |
Hi Matt, I did some Italian ice cream stores about a year ago, so I have some experience that applies here. First, if you haven’t worked with professional strobes in the past, you will find this work extremely difficult, maybe impossible. In order to work in an architectural environment, you must know what your tools do and be able to integrate them into a plan in your head and then execute the plan. If you go into the job expecting to see the light first and then shoot it will be very frustrating. You could try to do this with existing light, but color balance will be tricky, since the lights in the store won’t balance with the daylight. If you want to try the quick-and-dirty method, I would bet one professional strobe with at least (that means you really need more) 500 watt-seconds. Watt-seconds are for rating strobes; a 500-watt quartz lamp is not the same thing and will not do a good job. This question was labeled lighting for business job. If these shots are for professional usage, your client may be better served working with someone who has some experience with this kind of project. You may be better off sending the job to someone else and showing the client you understand the limits of your expertise. Thanks, John Siskin
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Think through if they want photos of the layout of the store, or if they want the appearance of regular happenings during business hours. If it's interior shots only, you could use the windows you spoke of as your only light source if you can schedule when you shoot at the time you have good light available. Interior shots with strobes aren't necessarily lit with strobes, but strobes are used to enhance available light. Add light to a dark corner, bring out a hallway in the background. Check the location for white ceilings, window shades to block direct light, how it would look at different times of the day, and things like that.
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Peter R. Hammer |
If you haven't worked with off-camera flash before forget about learning it on the job as you will probably get it wrong and look foolish. If there are no people around I would suggest using the camera on a solid tripod and taking bracketed exposures which you can blend later to get noisefree detail in the shadows. You can either blend these images by hand or use a HDR program like Photomatix to assist you. If there are people around it becomes harder but it can still work. A large reflector(s) can also be useful to get light in dark corners and you can easily see the effect before you take a shot.
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MATTHEW PARKER |
Thanks to all for your valuable feedback. Best Regards,
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Michael A. Bielat |
Something different would be to do what Peter H. said. Take multiple exposures (bracket from -2 eV to +2 eV) and then use a program like Photomatix to create a HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo. It will give the photo a ton of POP and everything will look almost cartoonish so to speak... Great for the kid in all of us when we go to get ice cream.... Not a bad pitch huh??? Seriously look into HDR photography and then cash in $99 for the Photomatix (hdrsoft.com) and include that cost of the software in with what you will charge... Here is a HDR photo example that I did recently. It was featured on Calumet Photos "Photo of the Week" in April... http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/big.php?photoID=3587127&catID=&style=&rowNumber=9&memberID=209768
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