The Thought Process

Hey guys! I decided to try something a little different on the blog today. I recently did a commercial shoot for UH at SOEST (School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology). When I was going through my images in Lightroom, I realized that one series told an interesting story of how I was able to reach the final image. I've included these images in this post so you can see my thought process.

NOTE: the rest of the post has a lot of photography "talk"...if you don't want to be bothered, just scroll down to the bottom for the final image lol. 

(Image above): I want the lab technician to be testing a wood sample in the moisture chamber, but the sunlight behind her is really strong. Let's pop a flash inside the moisture chamber to light her. Aim flash at the back of the chamber so the light will reflect back at her...like a softbox. 

Ok, sunlight is too distracting...try shoot the other way towards the door. I want a darker background. Oh haha, there's my softbox. 

Close the door, remove the softbox. Ok, it's getting there, but that white pillar!! ughh. I'm also losing detail on her lab coat, so gotta dial down the flash power.

Hmm...let's see...I wanna kill the ambient light even more, so change camera settings from f4 @ 1/80 sec to f8 @ 1/250 sec. Now let's pull the camera back to give more negative space annnndddddddd...

Voila :) As Joe McNally says, "If you want something to look interesting, don't light all of it."

Hope some of that made sense :) Happy Sunday!!