I haven’t taken the leap to moving pictures, staying stubbornly with still photography and think it will continue to be a great demand for it, even if it doesn’t move.

But, sometimes I work with poeple filming, lately I was called in as a photographer to aid a film photographer when he documented an event at a business school in Stockholm. He filmed interviews, lectures and put together a short clip for his client, my assignment was to add photos to the package.

Most of the day, we both used available light, walking around documenting the day, but for the interviews he used Litepanels to make the subjects look a little better. And they did. I took some stills during the interviews and was very surprised how easy a small LED-panel could make it all look so much better.

He had rented a 1×1 Litepanel for the day (I have heard that they are quite expensive) and set that up just outside the frame when doing the interview. Mixing the LED light with available light was very easy and for me, I could mostly use the photos from my camera without adjusting the exposure, it all blended nicely with the light around and behind the subject.

This LED light was battery powered and could be zoomed (flood/spot) as well as dimmed. I think there are versions that can adjust colour temperature as well.

After this assignment, we have done another just like it, and for me as a photographer this feels like a good niche to explore. I don’t have any interest in adding moving pictures and all the extra work/learning, equipment/terabytes around it right now, so joining forces with this guy feels like a step in the right direction.

Many companies ask for pictures that move, but doing it all by myself is very hard if the client also wants photos from the same event. Being at least two makes it all so much easier. And I don’t have to buy new stuff.

But back to the LED panels, if I didn’t have so much invested in studio lights, I think I could like working with them. A lot easier to quickly get the right light mixed with the available light, and if I just had one panel, not that much to carry.

And the portraits in this series look very professional, in a tv-studio lighting way.

Last week as was in Bologna, Italy, on an assignment for The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA). My job was to cover the announcement of the winner, photograph and deliver press photos from the book fair and generally supply my client with photos from different events during my two days in the city for their image bank.

As this was the tenth anniversary of the prize, some of the earlier recipients were at the fair to celebrate. During a hectic schedule I managed to take a couple of minutes with each of them, to get good up-to date portraits my client can use.

The woman in the first photo is from the Banco del Libro (2007), a non-profit institution headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela. We didn’t speak much, I just guided her to a glass door facing north with a lot of light coming in indirectly. Maybe the easiest way to get a natural portrait.

Next was the japanese illustrator Ryôji Arai, he had a translator with him for interviews, but we managed to get good portraits just using gestures and talking to each other without understanding the words. A bit like in the movie Ghost Dog, and it worked great. He won the prize in 2005 together with Philip Pullman, but unfortunately he wasn’t there.

Kitty Crowther is one of the winners since I started working for ALMA, I have taken a lot of beautiful portraits of her when she visited Sweden 2010 for the award ceremony. I took her portrait inside of the halls, with her back at the windows high up and facing a large white wall that worked as some kind of reflector. Not the window light I got near the door, but worked just fine.

Lygia Bojunga won the award in 2004 and has a face that really liked the light from that glass door. There is something I like a lot in portraits where all the features are chiseled out so you really can see the texture of the skin, wrinkles and all.

I wish I had found the spot near that glass door before I got to take Katherine Paterson’s portrait, but this turned out good anyway. We just found a spot inside the fair and I had her turning away from the window light a bit. The black and white version is good, but the mixed light and a very red carpet made the colour version pretty hardo to get right.

The Tamer Institute had one of their representatives at the fair, and here she is. They recieved the award the first year I worked as ALMA’s photographer in 2009.

Sonya Hartnett’s portrait was taken in the same hall as Kitty’s and Katherine’s, but in some way the light didn’t really work out as I had planned. I think it would have been a lot better if I could have taken it near that fantastic door, but I found that later.

All the previous winners were interviewed on video during one of the days, and I stayed close so I could ask them for a few more minutes. They have all a busy schedule during the fair, so I didn’t want to take too much of their time. But for this last one, I should have tried another location just to get it really right.

But, that is the problem with natural light, a location that has perfect light before lunch can be the worst place an hour later. But I knew that already, just forgot it at a bad moment.

A nice city by the way, Bologna, even if I had very little time to actually see more of the place than I did last year. Hopefully I will return in 2013 when Sweden also will have a big exhibition at the fair, maybe the will need a photographer?

Taking portraits on location with studio lights is something that is 90% setup, 9% small talk and around 1% pressing the shutter. Working in Sweden, I usually bring a couple of lights to every shoot, unless it is a regular assignment for articles in a magazine when natural light feels more appropriate.

The above portrait was an assignment from one of my clients where they wanted a nice picture with the man in a suit standing in their office. I had been there before, so I knew the layout pretty well. Which meant that I only packed two Profoto D1, one 5-foot softbox octa and a couple of light stands, and a Chimera reflector panel.

Lighting setup, on location portrait

This must be the lighting recipe I use by far most of the time when I want to light a person for a half-length portrait, it might feel boring to use the same setup again and again, but why change something that isn’t broken?

In the studio it might feel old sometimes, but adding a different background in a new environment (i.e. on location), it creates something new. Or at least different.

We scouted their office for good angles, the first suggestions was a portrait on the stairs, but it became a bit too tight so we ended up near their reception desk. Many times, letting your model lean onto something or just interact with their surroundings can make them feel more comfortable, but sometimes they refuse to look to relaxed (I think some people equals relaxed to looking sloppy). This guy had no problem with a more relaxed profile.

The lighting setup was some sort of clamshell, with one light camera left in a 5-foot softbox Octa and a silver reflector panel below. The other light I turned away from the camera to lighten the left part of the photo, but not adding hard shadows, as I used it with a bare bulb.

After a few test shots, I set the camera to 1/100s and f/3.2 which gave a good combination of flash light and available light from the spotlights above. I used a Nikon D700 with the 85mm/1.4 lens for a nice blur on the background.

My initial reaction to his tanned face together with the wood panel in the background was that I might have to adjust it later in Photoshop so they don’t blend too much, but after looking at the photo om my computer, I think that looked good. Everything has the same warm tone in a way, and why not?

Sometimes the simple and well-used solution is the best, just add an new background and it feels like something almost new.

This is just a reminder that soon a lot of my assignments can be done with just a reflector and a diffusion panel. And not having to freeze while taking a stiff portrait of some poor guy or girl outside in the cold just to use the little natural light that might be available around lunch just before it gets dark again.

Sunlight is very hard to beat when it comes to lighting a portrait, and even if you surround your models with stands and screens, they are a lot more relaxed out in the open than they are in the studio.

I really look forward to be able to work with sunlight again.

This is a portrait from a client’s showroom I took when they needed new photos for their image bank. In fact, this was from the second time I visited them. The first time, they asked me if I could snap a few portraits while I was there collecting new products for a shoot in my studio.

I had my camera with me, but nothing else, and with only very bright spotlights in the ceiling, the test shots turned out pretty ugly. Trying placing them near their windows didn’t help much that day, it was a bit too dark outside. And raining, so that ruled out outdoor portraits.

Behind the scenes in a showroom

Trying to take good portraits in a room lit only with spotlights is a real pain, all light comes from different directions, high up, with very bright spots here and there. To battle that, I just placed a large softbox, a 5 foot Profoto Octa camera left and very near the wall where they showcased their products.

This was my main light, I didn’t even need a reflector on the other side for these portraits. But you can see in the above picture how dark it was everywhere the spotlights didn’t shine.

I could have placed them against a white wall and it would have looked good, but being in their showroom full of their products, why not let that be a part of the background. It is what they sell, after all.

To light the background, I placed the other Profoto D1 250 Air far away, and with no light modifier, just the bare bulb, close to the windows (the small red ring in the photo above).

The effect on the bare bulb studio light was high enough to make the background almost blown out in some parts, but not stronger than to let the light from the spotlights be visible.

My background light also acted as a rim light, but just with a sliver of light on the side of their heads. Enough to make it separated a bit more from the background.

Except for details in the background, the light from the spotlights added very little to the photos. Maybe a little to the backgrounds.

The girl in the first photo has one of the spotlights pointed high up on her forehead, but for the taller guys, the highlight became almost blown out so we had to turn that spotlight away.

I really like to use available light when possible, but living in Sweden with less and less hours of light it is almost always better to bring some light of your own to any assignment.

And, it I need to take similar portraits of new employees in the future, I can do that without having to wait for the right season.

I just have to find a way to make my equipment lighter, but that is an ongoing project I am always struggling with.

Some of my assignments are for magazines and newsletters, and they mostly consists of  “go there and there, take a portrait of him and her, and send us the picture soon”. In this case it was two people working at a animals hospital together with their latest addition, a X-ray computed tomography machine.

Hearing that I would take photos inside a hospital made me think twice about going there with just my D700 and a Speedlight (which I mostly do otherwise) together with some lenses.

Instead I also packed a light stand, my Profoto AcuteB 600R, a PocketWizard, some ND-filter and duct tape.

Improving ambient light in a room

When I saw the small x-ray room the machine was in, I tried a couple of angles that would fit both the persons that needed to be in the pictures, as well as the pretty large piece of machinery.

The hospitals I have been to have almost all looked the same, some dull paint on the walls and flourescent lighting. Which makes for pretty bad portraits.

The simplest way to get good light, as I saw it, was to use the wall behind where I would be standing with the camera as a reflector, and turn the wall into one big fill light with a Profoto AcuteB 600R pointed straight into the wall.

To get the effect down really low, I taped ND-filter over the disc reflector.

This was my first test exposure, aperture 4 and shutter speed 1/200s. A bit too dark shadows and little too dark generally.

I increased the impact from the available light by adjusting the shutter in steps until I reached 1/100s which seemed like a good combination of flash fill and flourescent ambient light.

Aperture 4 seemed like a good choice as I wanted both persons to be sharp, but the background a little little soft.

And the shutter minimized the risks of getting blurry shots, something that is expremely annoying if you might catch it one the otherwise best shot.

Above is the room with just the available light (flash turned off for comparison) from the flourescent lamps, and it shows how much/little of is involved in the final image.

One of the nurses working there was really helpful and did gladly stand there while I adjusted the final angles and exposures.

It was thanks to her that I could add the final touch to the setup, the examination lamp on the arm above the machine could be turned on, and that helped with a little rim light on the machine as well as a tiny hair light if you look really close.

Nothing special, but much better than nothing at least. After that, I got a couple of minutes with the people I was there to photograph, and then I packed my stuff and headed back to the office where I made some small adjustments in Lightroom and delivered the portraits to my client. From door to door and back, I think it took about one hour.

From now on, I think I always will bring at least one big light and a light stand to every assignment. They are heavy but portable, and can make a big difference when coming to environments that generally make you think of boring photos. Or hours in Photoshop.

All photos were taken with a Nikon D700 and the 24-70/2.8 @29mm.