The Red Couch

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.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 and is filed under beauty, black and white, color, cool kids, friend, headshot, personal, portrait, portraits, project, red couch, studio, style. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.