Photography Under Pressure

When doing a commercial photograph shoot of a celebrity customer You not just have to be good at what you do, you’ve got to be consistent and work well under pressure. You not just have to make the Celebrity ecstatic but supply a photo that all others involved are happy with. Infrequently they’ll give you direction while other times the ball is in your court and it is one hundred percent your decision of what to style of photograph to shoot.

As a San Antonio Photographer, i have had the chance to do a couple of photo shoots of wellknown folks for poster advertisements and other promotions. One I remember was a shoot done a couple years ago for Tracy Lawrence, a well known Country Music frontman. The photos were to be used for poster advertisements and mailers. When I bid on the assignment I did not know whom I was going to snap. All I had been told was it’d be a star in town for one or two hours and what photographs were to be taken. And I would be doing the still photography during the breaks in the video shoot going on at the same time.

If you know anything about video and still photography the lighting is completelydifferent. Sharing time with a video crew generally means no time to setup and adjust your lights. It’d be an immediate setup and start shooting.

After arriving at the studio where the shoot would take place I was chuffed to discover I had a room almost to my self. Unlike other shoots where you share a scene with the video crew I had a fresh room. I still did not know the idea of the shoot so I pulled out all of the lights I had and got prepared. They would have liked a clean white background and then something a bit more creative.

After I finished my light set-up I went next door and shot some background photos of the video shoot. Naturally it was running long and shortly it was time for a lunch break and i still had not had an opportunity to start my shoot. This appears common at lots of the mixed video and still projects I get employed for.

During lunch I ask the selling director what unique shots they thought about. One pool area shot was mentioned which had the worst light you might imagine. Full sun in South Texas during the middle of the day. All I could see were the white props reflecting the light and an enormous shadow from his cowboy hat and reflections off his Guitar. Having photographed jewelry for a few years I know how long it takes to eliminmate all of the reflections from brightly polished jewellery and thought a high polished Guitar in full sun would be even worse.. This wasn’t going to be my ideal photograph shoot. Lucky for me they believed the 100 and degree weather was too hot so that the 2nd idea was to use a metal lined room with arustic table for the backdrop. Perfect window light and fill employing a single strobe put me back in my comfort zone.

Ultimately they bring the client for me to shoot and I find out the video is running actually behind and my time was cut from twenty minuets per look to about seven minutes. Not difficult as took one test shot and it was perfect. Asuperb look on the laptop that everyone was happy with and Tracy Lawrence nailed each expression required. After hours of boring video work he was happy and a real pro when it came to doing the still photos.

After my 7 minutes of shooting I found I had to move all my equipment to make way for another video being shot in the same room I was using and that after that I might have him for the rest of the day to do the rest of the footage. After two more hours I am getting the word that he is leaving at 600 for the airport and since the video folks had other issues I may not have the time to end my shoot.

During some of the down time I had done other parts of the shoot but still needed Tracy so he might be in the final layout. At about 15 till 6 they say he’s on his way and to stand by. Of course the video gear was still in they way and theyare rushing to move it around and help get my lighting back in place . Again without any time for test shots I used a similar way setup Ialways do for portraits and got aperfect look on the first shot. A few with a guitar, different shirt, hat and we were done shooting four looks in less than fifteen minutes. Many of these photographs are posted on my website.

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