Payne Financial Group CASE STUDY #48
CAMERA:
Hasselblad H3D
LENS:
120mm macro ISO:
EXPOSURE:
f/6.8 at
1/ 15
50
second
LIGHTING:
Profoto 800ws pack powering a 30-degree grid as main light and a medium Plume softbox place behind the first light; white reflector for fill
Assignment
heart started racing and I figured I’d try rebooting.
I was assigned to photograph a series of portraits of
Presto! I was back in business.
employees of the Payne Financial Group, an insurance company, for billboard advertising.
It turned out to be a three-day shoot—and about 30 gigabytes of images. (Note: I ended up asking the client for 500-gigabyte external hard drive so I could
Visual Objective
download the images and deliver it to them.) The
The ad agency wanted something very stylized that
quality and sharpness of the images was phenomenal
would look good in black & white.
and the client was thrilled. Two weeks later, images started appearing on billboards around the Northwest.
Pose
I had Angela cross her arms and directly face the cam-
Tips
era to show confidence.
I am fanatic about backing up my digital files after the shoot. I download the images from my card to my
The Story
computer’s hard drive, then drag my files to an exter-
When I learned that these images would be used for
nal hard drive for additional back up. You can never
billboards, a red flag went up. I had been using my
have too much memory.
Canon D30 for commercial work, but the resolution would not hold up for billboard-size work. The client preferred that I shoot digital and approved the funds to rent a Hasselblad H3D 39 (list price $29,000). So I was embarking on a shooting a big ad campaign with a camera I had never used before. Yikes. The camera arrived on a Friday and I spent the weekend getting comfortable with it and the software.
30-degree grid for main light
white reflector
On Monday, my assistant and I set up on location for the Tuesday shoot. Before we left, I tethered the camera to my laptop for a test shot. All was well.
medium softbox behind grid
The next morning, however, I tethered to the computer for another test shot and the camera froze. My LIGHTING CASE STUDIES
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