“CREATIVITY is thinking up new things.
INNOVATION is doing new things.” Theodore Levitt
Digital technology has given us some new opportunities to capitalize on old techniques, but knowledge of Photoshop should never become an excuse to stop thinking behind the camera. As commercial shooters,
how often have we heard the client mantra "I'll fix it later in Photoshop"? That's not good enough in my opinion, especially when a 30 second solution avoids a 30 minute fix. When photographing products in the studio, lighting technique and problem solving are the key elements that make the distinction between an experienced pro and a cookie cutter button pusher.
Sometimes old ideas can evolve into new solutions and here's a case in point:
For the Snowman image, which was designed as a Christmas Card concept, I wanted to create a cool feel to the scene, but retain a spill of soft white light on the subject.
Two strobes were used:
RIGHT: A small square soft box, with gobo's for directional control.
LEFT: A tall narrow (strip light) soft box.
To produce the cool effect I instinctively would have used a BLUE gel
on the LEFT, such as the Lee Filters FULL CTB #201
Problem:
On the day of the shoot, I didn't have enough BLUE gel material available to cover the entire soft box on the LEFT, to produce the desired result.
Solution:
I had lots of ORANGE gels on hand, in this case the Lee Full CTO #204,
so I used these to cover the soft box on the RIGHT.
Now, imagine that to the eye, the scene looked opposite to what you see in the photo. i.e. the LEFT side of the snowman and the surrounding snow appeared WHITE and the RIGHT side appeared ORANGE.
Using an 18% grey card pointed toward the ORANGE light, I colour balanced this to be NEUTRAL. This forced the un-gelled light on the LEFT to appear BLUE!
By thinking outside the box, the problem was solved quickly and convincingly without a costly, time wasting trip to a supplier for additional gel material. The image was completed straight-out of the camera without the need for Photoshop manipulation.
Details:
Captured with a Phase One digital back on a 4x5 Sinar camera for selective focus control. 150mm Sinaron lens.
Lee 204 - Full Colour Temperature Orange (CTO)
Converts Daylight (6500K) to Tungsten light (3200K).
Lee 201 - Full Colour Temperature Blue (CTB)
Converts Tungsten light (3200K) to Photographic Daylight (5700K).
The Snowman was built using Styrofoam balls and secured using wooden skewers. Scale: 7" tall
Snowman’s texture came from a spay can of window effect snow. A thinned down drywall compound was then splattered on the figure,
off the end of a paint brush. Once dry, the figure was then re-sprayed with aerosol snow.
Smile created with map pins.
Carrot nose was found at a dollar store.
Branch arms were trimmed from a neglected house plant.
Scarf was hand knit with flexible wire inside.
Buttons were pre-threaded and hot glued to the figure.
Coal for the eyes was chipped off of a nugget found in my basement.
The snow background was granulated sugar.
Remember “a 30 second solution avoids a 30 minute fix”.
