Yes­ter­day, I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to shoot pub­lic­i­ty pho­tos for some friends and gained valu­able expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge. This is a new chap­ter in my pho­tog­ra­phy adven­ture which I jump into, whole heart­ed­ly with both feet. But it takes a bit of prac­tice…

Let me first say that I shoot live musi­cians when­ev­er and wher­ev­er I have the oppor­tu­ni­ty. And I play jazz myself, so I have some expe­ri­ence at the chal­lenge of get­ting good angles. But a sched­uled pho­to shoot requires a more delib­er­ate approach. This post will doc­u­ment my thought process and lessons learned.

To pre­pare, I spent the time required to thor­ough­ly watch the Zack Arias DVD, One Light Work­shop. Keep­ing the instruc­tion­al sim­ple by using only one flash unit for all exam­ples, Zack clear­ly demon­strates how to mas­ter the light in any set­ting using man­u­al con­trol over shut­ter speed, aper­ture, ISO and flash pow­er. If you are con­fused at all about flash pho­tog­ra­phy, I high­ly rec­om­mend this 4 hour DVD set. Check out a short trail­er from the video and a review by pho­to blog­ger David Cross on Zack­’s web site for much more detail: http://www.onelightworkshop.com/page5/page5.html

Next, under­stand­ing how the client will use the pic­tures and what type of set­ting they desire will help deter­mine the equip­ment you will need. The clients chose the defunct Alame­da Navy base as a back­drop with all it’s indus­tri­al and decay­ing atmos­phere. I thought it best to shoot in the shade wher­ev­er pos­si­ble to min­i­mize stark shad­ows and squint­ing and decid­ed on a sim­ple Nikon SB 900 speed flash, a reflec­tive umbrel­la, a light stand and a pair of pock­et wiz­ards for remote con­trol might help even out the light and be easy to deal with. A larg­er flash and a larg­er light box would have pro­vid­ed a bet­ter light source for a 4 per­son shoot but since I do not own this equip­ment and need to rent it, I con­sid­ered the fol­low­ing in my choice:

- we had a short 2.5 hours, begin­ning to end for the shoot, includ­ing loca­tion scout­ing, dis­cus­sion, and pic­ture review
— I do not have an assis­tant and so want­ed to keep the rig as portable as pos­si­ble
— I want­ed to keep the price down
— I am con­sid­er­ing buy­ing these items and want­ed to test their lim­its in the field

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.

Next — Part 2: Rent­ing and Test­ing the Flash Rig
Part 2 — Part 3