Regrets

My aim was to go for something rather pensive, with the subject looking like they were deep in thought over some (unknown to the viewer) event earlier on. I needed a background which had some reasonable interest, to avoid too sterile a feel, and the subject sat looking lost in thought.

Tony Forbes kindly volunteered to be my “victim” and did a great job. For the lights, I wanted to have some smooth, but clear light across the background and table, providing a (seemingly) ambient light which was gently pooled to draw the eyes towards Tony. This was achieved with an SB-900 fired through a white shoot-through umbrella just out of shot to the right. The light was feathered along the wall in such a way as to start to provide some natural vignetting in the frame. The real ambient itself was killed completely by dropping the EV by around 3 or 4 stops. The main light on Tony was an SB-800 fired through a Honl grid at a similar power to the other light (maybe a stop higher). The tighter focus in the beam strengthened the light where it fell on Tony’s face, and the light was positioned (mounted on a Justin clamp on the table just to right of the frame) so as to glance against the side on Tony’s face and body. The final touch was a reflector well off to the left of the frame, added in at the suggestion of Callum Winton for a touch of fill on the back of Tony’s head. You can see a plan of the rough layout of the lighting elements in the diagram above (click for a slightly larger version).

Thanks to Callum and Tony for their help in putting this together. A fairly simple setup (just the two lights), but a rather pleasing end result.