Shooting day at work today (besides loads of other fun). Photographing some bottles of St. Croix cologne. I like this kind of project because it rarely comes with a very clear expectation of what I need to do. I get some leeway to be creative, and so I do.

As you’ll see, I opted for a spotlight approach for these photos. It was a single strobe overhead with a 30º honeycomb to direct the light. For the first two shots, where the boxes are included, I placed the light directly overhead, and used a bit of my on-camera 580ex to both fill in detail on the boxes, as well as trigger the strobe. For the second two shots, I wanted the bottles together to contrast the first two, and so I moved the same strobe back, and angled my 580ex so has to have no effect on exposure. Whereas initially the light spots the “ground” that the bottles sit on, the second two then have the light spotting the back “wall”, and thus silhouetting them quite dramatically.

Enjoy.

Another day of Red shooting. I’ll probably need to take a break for a few days after this. We shot more different people in one go today than I have thus far, and it gets pretty tiring and makes for long posts, but it’s still a good time. Enjoy.

These two you’re seeing here are two people I only recently met. I met Danny a few days ago, and Abbey just today at the shoot. I have to say, they’re a darn good looking pair, even if they are brother and sister.

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.