For a while now, I’ve been looking for a consistent and repeatable setup… a look, a prop, a lighting scheme, all to work together to form a consistent look for a series of photos. Portraits, of course. Since it has to be repeatable, this essentially meant a studio setup. I had a short series with the ugly, beat up dresser, but I moved out of that house and the dresser stayed. Besides, it was too crowded in there anyway.

Well today I finally put it together. I won’t go into details as far as what causes the look, but any astute reader and viewer will be able to determine what’s happening lighting-wise in these photos. Apparently all it really takes is a couch… Not a normal couch. This one has seat belts.

One thing that also was somewhat important was the feasibility of color photography with this setup. I do a lot of black and white, especially in the studio, so I decided I wanted to branch that out a bit, but at the same time not lose the drama that I’ve come to enjoy very much with studio lights. A red couch is essentially perfect, as it’s eye catching, but because of the surroundings (read: lack thereof), it doesn’t become a distraction. Even from a single day of shooting it becomes quite clear that people react with some variation to the couch. Some sit straight on, some lie down, some a combination of the both. It’s simply wherever you feel most comfortable that you fit.

Nevertheless, I found that black and white photography also looks great with this setup when additional drama is needed.

And a guy named Mark.

Had all the lights set up, and Mark showed up later than I thought he would be coming, so I entertained myself.

And here’s Mark, having his picture taken for Northland Organic. You wouldn’t believe how many stuffed animals we had to shake at this guy to make him smile.

According to my research, my most common visitors use 1280×800 resolution computers. They’re about 10% higher than any of my other resolutions, namely 1280-7whatever. However, I like widescreen images much better, and decided to make a quick desktop background available of those bean photos I took. It’s clean, so you can find your crap. It’s bright, so you can use you computer as a flashglight. What more can you want?

Available in two resolutions:

1280×800

and 1680×1050:

Right-click on the thumbnail of the file you want and select “open in new window”, then right-click on the opened image and save it to wherever you want on your computer to use it for a background. When I figure out how to make a download link, I’ll do that, but for now you just have to live with it.