Making a Difficult Lighting Problem Look Easy

A photo for the Vinings Investment Company's annual report, 1997.

In my previous post I said that "the thing I like most about commercial photography is that it's an endless process of problem-solving." This statement is doubly true of annual report photography, because there are always problems to be solved and more often than not, they're lighting problems.

I did annual reports for a number of companies over the years, but one of my favorites was an assignment for the Vinings Investment Company of Atlanta in 1997. The simple-looking scene at the top of this post was actually the most challenging shot of the day. But as the saying goes, "If it doesn't look easy, you're not doing it right!"

The purpose of the photo was to show several people looking at a computer screen. The challenge was to make it appear that the scene was being illuminated by the light coming from the screen itself. It all had to be very subtle and natural-looking.

As always on any assignment where I would be away from the studio and possibly facing unpredictable situations, I carried a full lighting kit consisting of several large, studio-type flash units on light stands and also several small flashes of the type that mount on a camera.

The lighting solution I came up with for this scene was to set one of the large flashes to low power and bounce it off the ceiling to give the appearance of a semi-darkened room. Then, I hid one of the small flash units, a Vivitar 283, just on the other side of the monitor and covered it with two layers of white handkerchief to soften and diffuse the light playing on the faces of the people. Voila!

The camera was a medium format Mamiya RB67 (my workhorse for commercial photography,) the 127mm f4.5 Mamiya-Sekor lens, and Fujichrome 100 film.

 

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Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    commercial photography     annual report photography     Vivitar 283 flash     Mamiya RB67 camera     127mm f4.5 Mamiya-Sekor lens    Fujichrome 100 film     film photography    photographic lighting