Simon Cook, CEO of DFJ Esprit
Simon Cook, CEO of DFJ Esprit, pictured in the Guinness Storehouse on Feb 4 ahead of the Dublin Web
Summit in Trinity College later that day.
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This is one of my favourite examples of what you can do with just a
single strobe. This gentleman was part of a group of technology
entrepreneurs touring Dublin before a conference that evening. I was
to shadow them for the day. My client told me he wanted some decent
portraits of this group, so I asked for 10 minutes to be set aside in
the programme for the photos. He suggested Wired magazine for some
inspiration -- and rightly so, since their photography is excellent,
but usually requires full-on studios with a small army of equipment and assistants.
Anyway, I knew I'd need to be highly mobile during the day, so lugging around my bulky lightstand for these shots wasn't an option. I scheduled them for the lunch, which was to be in a venue I'd never visited before, and hoped for the best.
The room we were in had an unusual small area to one side. I think it was the point where a conveyor belt previously would have fed material into the room from outside. The walls in this alcove were black and there were two small windows on either side, as well as black cross bars near the ceiling. I rested my only strobe on the cross bar and, after a few quick tests with my hand and the videographer, put each subject just on the threshold to the alcove. I set my white balance to tungsten, accounting for the cool rimlight. The ambient in this case was the indirect halogen room lighting. Because they were just beyond the lights' direct reach, there's a pleasing ring-flash-like appearance to it. There's also some wrap from the small windows.
It worked well, reminded me of Wired's highly produced, glossy lighting and I could motor through all 20 subjects in about 5 minutes.
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