(Sara Joyner III (welcoming exit)
(Sara Joyner III (welcoming exit), originally uploaded by @lifebypixels.
Via Flickr:
On the property we were shooting was an old unused aviary/greenhouse. The cyan blue paint was so striking. Initially the problem was that the large parabolic umbrella was lighting her great from the front, but as a brunette the space inside the aviary was pitch black. I was losing her hair and other small details into the darkness. It didn't look right. So instead of trying to key her hair with a snoot, I decided we should light the inside of the aviary/greenhouse. Once I saw the separation from the background getting created, one of my crew suggested we gel the flash. I went with a CTO and we experimented with which part of the interior to bounce it off so it looked natural versus a forced keylight. Something I learned from a Gregory Heisler talk was thinking about staging light in assumable ways to the scene. It worked great for me here. Eventually we did away with the gel altogether to create a more creepy cold effect with the white balance turned down.
So outside is a large parabolic with an SB800, inside is a hand-held SB800 open and set wide. My friend Mike as the V.A.L. The interior light is gelled, the exterior is not. The shot is taken with my D7000 using a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 and the SU800 commander on top to fire wirelessly.
The real beauty was that there was a really good bottle of whiskey left on the grounds that we added to the shot to make it more story-centric visually.
@lifebypixels