Photographic Randomness: March 2014

I want to start by mentioning the importance of having a plan when you’re doing a shoot (so as to not waste anybody’s time, or in some cases, so you don’t waste what little time you have with the subjects), and always remember to check equipment before a shoot, I did have a handy checklist to pack everything, but (because stupid checklists are stupid), I forgot my power strips, and extension cords. We got lucky, as right across the street from our location, there was a Home Depot, but this was more of an annoyance, and it could have been a big problem for us had Home Depot not been that accessible.

Now back to the scheduled blog post, a couple of Sundays back, we went to Patty’s old CrossFit box, we got together again with Christian and Jorge, and a couple of additional athletes (Rene and Luis), to make some more pictures.

These shots are always challenging as this guys are not coming to pose and take pictures, but to exercise. We try to take this into consideration when approaching them, and particularly when we are setting up (as I mentioned before, you, or your equipment, do not want to be close to the weight drop zone, among other things). I usually try to keep things simple, and use as little equipment as possible, our first shoot with this guys was me, Patty, one lens, 5 speedlites, and a 30” octa (plus light stands)… not this time. I brought EVERY single piece of equipment and lights we own (granted, we didn’t use it all, but better to have it a not need it...), After seeing where we would be setting, we dialed back to two studio heads inside gridded 13x55 strip banks for edge lighting, and another one, high on a C-Stand, inside a 22” beauty dish as our main light (and this was the setup for most of the day, then we changed the beauty dish for a 60” Octa for the last portraits), and after we solve the little “power” issue, we got some frames.