What can pos­si­b­lie go wrong?

There were a few mishaps but not too much went wrong on this pho­to shoot. Let’s include the things that could have gone wrong in this list.

- Be on time, actu­al­ly be ear­ly. I was on time but I should have got­ten to the site much ear­li­er (or gone days before) to scout loca­tions. Why not become famil­iar with appro­pri­ate pho­to­genic loca­tions in your area as well as sun direc­tion at var­i­ous times of the day. Spend­ing time scout­ing loca­tions saves time for your clients. In this field, I would rather wait for my clients then have them wait for me.

- Equip­ment can break unex­pect­ed­ly. I was pre­pared for shoot­ing out­side with a stand and umbrel­la reflec­tor by bring­ing weights to sta­bi­lize the stand. An umbrel­la can take off like a kite in a mod­er­ate wind, tak­ing your expen­sive light­ing with it. What I did­n’t expect is for some parts to fall out of the cen­ter part of the stand allow­ing it to spin freely like a weath­er vane. We used a busi­ness card stuck in the gap to fin­ish the shoot. Do not let unex­pect­ed prob­lems put you off your game. Fix it or have spares and move on.

- Get per­mis­sion. Hav­ing per­mis­sion from prop­er­ty own­ers is a plus. If not, expect secu­ri­ty to make no allowances for tres­pass­ing. If con­front­ed, be polite and move along. We were set­ting up for a great shot on these blue met­al stairs when the man hap­pened along. We did not get the shot.

— Pay atten­tion to what is in the frame. This takes prac­tice when time is lim­it­ed. You are try­ing to quick­ly get as many shots from as many angles as you can. Tak­ing time to ana­lyze the back­ground will save you time in post. We set­tled on a loca­tion with cool look­ing doors but there were also many win­dows around. Review­ing the pic­tures, I find the win­dows fair­ly busy with dis­trac­tions reflect­ed in the glass, such as cars, pic­nic tables, the back of the mod­el’s heads and worst of all, the flash set­up. I might be able to remove that rodent trap in Pho­to­shop but glass panes are not so easy to recon­struct. Pay atten­tion and avoid unwant­ed objects when you shoot. Shoot­ing tighter can help or move to sharp­er angles but if it is not work­ing, say so, take charge and move to anoth­er loca­tion. It is also impor­tant for you to pay atten­tion to the mod­els. They can­not see them­selves as well as you can. Is their cloth­ing or their hair out of place? Are the props block­ing any­thing impor­tant? Pay atten­tion to these things, move items and com­ment when need­ed. I per­son­al­ly do not touch the mod­els.

- Flash needs to recharge. Of course the flash needs to recharge. I knew that. And the high­er pow­er you shoot, the longer the recharge time. This is a tim­ing issue that takes prac­tice and expe­ri­ence. The flash did not fire for some of my best shots. Bright sun and brack­et­ed set­tings did save the day for some.

Con­clu­sion — Look at every­thing I learned. This was a suc­cess­ful shoot for me and most impor­tant­ly, I hope the quar­tet like the pic­tures. It is real­ly for and about the client. Just make sure what you can pro­vide is ful­ly under­stood by all con­cerned ahead of time. Then go a have fun!

The InStep Quar­tet is a pro­fes­sion­al, high qual­i­ty and mul­ti-genre San Fran­cis­co bay area based string quar­tet. Read more about them on their web site.

Part 1 — Part 2