I had in-laws in town from France for a few weeks and we wanted to get some pictures of them before they left. We sat around the table on their last night trying to decide what concepts to cover. Fall leaves was an option as we are in the middle of October, but (no pun intended)...Look down at the first image if that didn't make sense. We had to do the shoot early in the morning because the had their flight in the early afternoon. That meant it would be too cold for the kids, so we scratched that idea. Then Jérémie, my brother-in-law suggested we photograph the kids in the bath. Merci pour le bonne idée, Jérémie! I should have guessed what a mess it was going to make! Well worth it though. I think we got some great images!
Here's some details on how I shot the shoot for those who are interested.
There is a window right above the bath tub. I put a profoto light using a 7b portable power pack outside the window. I put some difussion material over the window to soften up the light. I cranked the power up on the light to max. That allowed me to shoot the images at f16. This was important to me because with the movement of kids I knew I would need some forgiveness with the focus. The results were great, even though it went fast and the kids were all over the place, my in-focus ratio was very high. Every image that I selected was in sharp focus. There is nothing I hate more than seeing that perfect image then opening it only to find that it is out of focus! OK, so the back light through the window is too contrasty alone, so I added 3x4 foot fill cards all over the set to fill in the shadows. By the way, as far as shooting at f16 goes, This is a fairly rare situation where I allow myself to do that, and the reason why it was OK in this situation is because I didn't care if the background was in focus because it was so simple. If I were in a situation were I had a background that could get busy (I.E. trees, etc.) I would not even consider shooting at f16. I would be at more like f5.6. I hope you enjoy the images!
