New Headshots

New Headshots

First job after a soporific summer break.

August seemed to last forever.

I needed to do something to wake myself. When I was contacted by an old client and heard the brief I thought ‘perfect.’

I have several basic go-to set-ups for headshots which I customise depending on the person, location and available time.

The point of this is to avoid technical distractions so you can concentrate on the real work.

Turning someone who usually starts a shoot looking like a rabbit caught in headlights into a happy  human being.

If I can shoot them in my  home this is limited by space so I tend to use smaller light modifiers….

But not today.

I decided to use the biggest ones I had and to mount one of them on a boom arm.

Just to really make a rod for my back.

This required a trip to the beach because the weight bag I have was empty.

I thought there may be a law against borrowing the sand, but the substantial police presence ignored me.

Now the last time I saw Lukas (the client) was during Covid when there was finally some freedom of movement.

The reason I remember it so well is because after the shoot I went to a small party of about 12 people.

10 of us got Covid.

I was wiped out for 2 weeks.

But the shoot went well I guess; returning clients are a good sign.

Lukas has set up a new company and wanted headshots with the 3 new colleagues.

3 very chatty females. Which was perfect as I have realised doing these kind of shoots, which are primarily business headshots, it is better if there are other people present.

They usually distract and help put the subject at their ease.

Very useful when one is preoccupied with technical issues; you are certainly not giving them your full attention whilst you wrangle the lighting.

It all went well and they were happy with the results and I have the working model for a new lighting set-up which I can keep refining…

Assuming I can get more victims that is.

I don’t consider myself to be primarily a studio photographer but if I could justify the expense I would definitely consider it.

Just not having to set up and then break down all those bloody light modifiers would be worth it and the possibilities of extra space and more experimentation would be brilliant.