Our good friends asked if I would mind taking photos for Woodrow’s senior year. We were happy to do it and I found it good to go back to the old school days of portraits. Now understand, I’ve got to think this stuff through, it doesn’t come naturally to me. And just to keep things interesting, they picked all the locations. I had no clue where we were going, no preplanning. So for two hours on Saturday we had a good ol time making some images. This first location they liked was this tunnel of trees. Shooting with the Df / 80-400VR3, I brought the Profoto B1 in close with a Beauty Dish attached. Shooting with the new TTL Remote for the Profoto made the exposure a snap! Shooting with the 80-400, I could incorporate the “tunnel” while at the same time move the Profoto/Beauty Dish in real close, as in five feet away from them. The photography part was easy, getting brother and sister to look at the camera and not their parents, that was the challenge.
The next locale was at the front of the high school. I have to admit, with the clock ticking I was at first a bit stumped how to make something special from this locale. The arch, school name and stairs were all elements they wanted in the photo. I switched to the 18-35 and set up the camera on a tripod so the symmetry was set. Then I put the Profoto B1 with the Magnum Refl (with 10 degree grid) on a 10′ pole. With the weight and aiming, I held the pole up and over Woodrow and then my lovely bride pushed the shutter release when I said now. I have to be totally honest, you’d think we did this all the time because it turned out perfectly real easily. Lucky! The Profoto TTL makes the exposure simple, which helped.
The last set up was on the football field. As you can see, they didn’t want the typical football photo. No pads, no helmet and not even a football. They wanted the goal poles, that’s all. So I switched to the 24f1.4, put the 1×4 softbox on the Profoto B1 on a stand three feet off the ground and sat underneath it. I had a TON of power lines to remove but the sky was pretty cool. The most important thing is the family had fun and loves their photos. Helping anybody preserve memories is a worthy task of all photographers and we’re so glad we had the opportunity. It’s always good to knock the dust off some old brain cells and go back to some old school shooting with some modern tools.