When doing a commercial photograph shoot of a star client You not only have to be good at what you do, you have got to be consistent and work best under stress. You not just have to make the Celebrity happy but provide a photograph that all others involved are satisfied with. Occasionally they’ll give you direction while other times the ball is in your court and it is 100% your decision of what to style of photograph to shoot.
As a professional commercial photographer,I’ve had the chance to do one or two photo shoots of well-known folks for poster advertisements and other advertisements One I remember was a shoot done a few years back for Tracy Lawrence, a well known Country Music frontman. The photos were to be used for poster advertisements and mailers. When I bid on the assignment I didn’t know whom I was going to photograph.All I had been told was it might be a star in city for a few hours and what photographs were to be taken. And that I would be doing the still photography during the breaks in the video shoot going on at the same time.
If you know anything about video and still photography the lighting is completely different. Sharing time with a video crew usually means no time to setup and adjust your lights. It might be a rapid setup and start shooting.
After arriving at the studio where the shoot would occur I was cheerful to discover that I had a room nearly to my self. Unlike other shoots where you share a scene with the video crew I had aseparate room. I still did not know the concept of the shoot so I pulled out all of the lights I had and got prepared. They wanted a clean white background and then something a touch more creative.
After I finished my light set-up I went next door and shot some background pictures of the video shoot.Naturally it was running long and soon it was time for a lunch break and i still had not had achance to start my shoot.This seems usual at lots of the mixed video and still projects I get employed for.
During lunch I ask the promoting director what unique shots they were thinking about. One pool area shot was mentioned which had the worst light you might imagine. Full sun in South Texas during the middle of the day. All I could see were the white props reflecting the light and a giant shade from his cowboy hat and reflections off his Guitar. Having photographed for one or two years I know how long it takes to eliminmate all the reflections from brightly polished jewelry and thought a high polished Guitar in full sun would be even worse.. This wasn’t going to be my ideal photograph shoot. Fortunate for me they suspected the 100 plus degree weather was too hot so that the second idea was to use a metal lined room with a country table for the backdrop. Perfect window light and fill employing a single strobe put me back in my comfort sector.
Eventually they bring the client for me to shoot and I find out the video is running really behind and my time was cut from 20 minuets per look to about 7 minutes. Not difficult as took one test shot which was perfect. A superb look on the portable that everyone was OK with and Tracy Lawrence nailed each expression needed. After hours of boring video work he was cheerful and a true professional when it came to doing the still photos.
After my seven mins of shooting I found I had to move all my equipment to make way for another video being shot in the same room I was using and that after that I would have him for the rest of the day to do the rest of the photographs. After a couple more hours I am getting the word that he’s leaving at 600 for the airfield and since the video folks had other issues I may not have some time to end my shoot.
During some of the down time I had done other bits of the shoot but still needed Tracy so he might be in the final layout. At fifteen until six they are saying he’s on his way and to prepare. Naturally the video gear was still in they way and they are dashing to move it around and help get my lighting back in effect. Again without any time for test shots I used the same light setup I mostly do for portraits and got a perfect look on the 1st shot. A few with a guitar,which is hard to photograph because it reflects as much as platinum jewelry, different shirt, hat and we were done shooting 4 looks in less than 15 mins. Many of those pictures are posted on my website.
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