I am still trying to perfect the setup for my company’s corporate head shots that I will be taking in a couple of weeks.  For this trial shot, I used the softbox at camera left and a reflector on camera right.  The background was lit up with a second strobe with a gird placed on it.  I am thinking that I will need to order three more pieces of equipment.  One to get the exact look that my CEO is looking for and two others to make the setup flexible enough to use in even the most unprepared locations.

The first piece I think I will be buying is a third flash.  I have not been able to get the ratio of light on the dark side of the face using the reflector.  This may be because I do not know how to use it effectively yet.  A third flash will allow me to get the exact ratio I am looking for more easily.

The second piece will be a background light stand.  The stand will make for quick setup and adjustments of the background light flash.

The third piece is a posing stool.  I would love to get an adjustable one, but they seem a bit pricey.  I will have to do my research to see if I can get something effective, but cheap.

I read a blog post several weeks ago about a fun type of photo which lends itself to being taken in hotels.  The best way to describe these types of photographs is “bed jump” pictures.  It all sounds so simple: set the camera on the timer setting and then time jump on or onto the bed to coincide with the shutter releasing.  This is exactly what I tried to do tonight.  I set the camera up on a tripod and used a bare-bulb flash bounced off of the ceiling.  After each of my first few jumps, I took the time to remake the bed as best as I could.  It did not take me long to grow tired of this routine.  I settled on just touching up the sheets between attempts going forward.  It took me about twenty-five to thirty attempts until I was certain that I had a useable shot in camera.  My 50mm f/1.8 lens limited how much of the scene I could fit into the frame.  However, I like the end result.  I named the photo “Bed Jump: Attempt 1″ because I know, for certain, this will not be the last time I attempt a bed jump type photograph.  As soon as I have a wider lens with me during an overnight hotel stay, I will be bed jumping once again.

Today I wanted to put the new gear to the real test.  I decided to add a background and reflector to my gear so that I can use them to take corporate head shots for my company in February.  I left myself plenty of lead time to iron out any kinks in the setup or my technique.

I set up the background and paced off eight feet to where I would be standing for the portrait.  I placed one of my light stands on the spot to mark it for the time being.  I then paced off eight more feed and set up the tripod.  I used the light stand place holder as a focusing point.  Next, I placed the background light on a small table a foot behind where I would be standing.  The Apollo softbox was then placed at camera left and in close.  The last piece of the puzzle was setup up the new reflector and stand.  Once it was all hooked up and angled properly, the reflector was placed camera right and in close.  (I have included a setup shot at the end of the post.)

For the first few frames, I had the circular reflector with its white side exposed to the softbox.  The result from this setup was a heavy shadow on the subject’s left side.  Mid-shoot, I flipped the reflector over to expose its silver side and reflect more light back into the shadows.

I like the way the final images came out of the camera.  I did, however, open up the exposure a bit more in Lightroom during post processing.  The next time I practice these shots, I have to remember to open up the exposure more in camera.  What looked great on the back of the camera turned out to be a bit too dark on the computer screen.

I decided to try another self portrait today to see if I could apply some of the lessons I have learned since taking my last one.  Two of the things I wanted to exercise were the camera to subject and subject to background distances as well as some posing techniques.

The first thing I did was measure eight feet from the wall in our dining/living room.  I put one of my two light stands in this spot.  I then paced off eight more feet away from the wall and from the spot I just marked.  This is where I placed my camera.  I popped the 70-200mm lens on the 7D so that I could compress the background as much as possible and get a really sharp imagine with my best piece of glass.

The next step was to set up the background light.  I decided to go with a gridded flash.  I wanted the effect of a circle of light on the brown wall in the background.  I swapped in a pot holder with the light stand  currently in the middle of the room.  I lowered this stand as far as it would go and placed the gridded 430EX II strobe on it.  I moved it to just behind the pot holder mark and pointed it up at forty-five degrees to the wall. I took my best guess as to where it needed to be aimed.

At this point, I took a couple of test shots with just the background light.  I knew I wanted my aperture at f/4.0 and my ISO at 100, so I locked those in right away.  I do not remember why I chose a shutter speed of 1/125 sec.  Usually I shoot this type of shot at 1/250 to eliminate as much, if not all, of the ambient light as possible.  The setting that I cared most about during these few test shots was the background flash power.  Thanks to the 7D, I was able to adjust this setting very quickly in the flash menu on the camera.

Next, I set up the Apollo twenty-eight inch soft box on camera left.  I brought it as close to my marked spot as possible without letting it get into the frame.  I started with the soft box pointing at my mark and at a forty-five degree angle relative to the camera.  However, as I got into the shooting, I slowly changed this angle to more of a thirty-five or forty degree angle and feathered the light across my face.

The posing technique that I was playing with was where to have the subject stare while taking the pictures.  In this image, I was staring at the Canon emblem right above the lens of the camera.  This method is said to open up the subject’s eyes for a more compelling portrait.