This post is an explainer on how I shot my portrait of James Prather, owner of American Needleworks in Middletown for the Orange Magazine story on local yarn shops. Since I had shot lots of detail images of the Middletown shop in December, I knew exactly the spot I wanted to shoot the portrait of James, when I was asked to return for a portrait. In the back of his studio he has a work table with light hanging over it. This was the perfect spot that made him look like he was toiling away late at night.
I quickly realized the ambient light here was perfect. All I needed to do was fill in the shadow on his face and maybe light up some detail in the background. I used a tightly snooted strobe with a full orange CTO gel over the flash to match the light from the hanging lamps. You can see the difference in the closer shots below where the flash filled in shadows. In the background I used another flash with CTO gel as well, just to give some contrast in the back.
In these wide angle images you can see where I placed the flash on the table. A pretty simple lighting setup for the final image of James that matched the vision of the photo I had going into this assignment: him toiling away at his table at night surrounded by the dark blue tones of his studio.
These are the 2 final portraits
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