On Tuesday the 2nd of February I assisted the lovely photographer Tony Cobley. I met him at a hotel in Plymouth to help set up a small studio space in where head shots were to be taken of members from a corporate group. This was a great learning experience for me as I have never been a part of this style of photography before.
I met him at 9:30am and we began by unloading the equipment needed for the day. We then set up the small studio using a large folding back drop (with one side black and one site white) making sure the white side was facing forwards. We wanted this so that the portraits would stand out.
We then set up the lights inside the back drop so that it would not have any colour whatsoever. It was important to get this right otherwise it could have a yellow tint to it making the images look unprofessional. We sent them to not have the modelling bulb on as this can cause over heating in the backdrop and be prone to fires. Instead we had it only flash when triggered by the Key Light. The next step was setting up the Key Light and the Fill Light. The head on the Key Light was a large octagonal soft box. It was explained to me that this gave a very lovely round catch light in the person’s eye. The size of the soft box was important too, as we had to evenly light the whole of the subject’s face to bust. The Fill Light was about 3 foot long and about a foot and a half wide. This filled in the opposite side of the person’s face. It was also set on a lower lighting and positioned further away than the Key Light to the subject. This was to allow for shadows and give depth to the faces.
The images produced were clean and crisp and had a lovely feel to them. Tony ensured every image had the people smiling which gave each portrait personality.
Once these were taken, I got to observe Tony photographing a large meeting that the company held. It was fascinating to watch as I learnt you must not worry when taking these images, and though you want candid shots, to not be afraid if people see you there.
The images produced from this were of a very low aperture and had lots of light. The lighting was extremely faithful to what it looked like in the room and each shot was sharp.
It really allowed me to see what other areas of photography there are and that you should never be afraid to turn you hand to a new genre.