Sometimes it just takes this long
Sometimes a group shot takes 15 minutes. You decide the type of shot you want to take, place your subjects in one of the classic group poses, take several shots to make sure everybody’s eyes are open, and voilà! Not this time. Glutenberg Inc. had a vision for their group photo. They always do, and that’s why I love about working with them. David Cayer, one of the co-owners, has an artistic soul and doesn’t hesitate to share his vision. “I’m the A.D. (Art Director)”, he always says as he stiffens snobbishly before exploding in laughter.
The difficulty of the shoot lay in the fact that the setting was their brewery, and they specifically wanted to showcase their super-duper-compressor-machine that makes their brewing process unique. It took 1.5 hours to get the lighting setup. I used 4 Alien Bee flashes (3 B400 and 1 B800). The B800 was used as the main light straight in front, one B400 as the fill light for the two principal subjects on the stairs, one B400 to light the back wall (could have put two B400 there to light more of the wall but I found that a single flash in the back made a nice round falloff), and the last B400 was used to throw light ont he group from the right.
All in all, 3.5 hours of work for a single group photo. Sometimes it just takes this long. 🙂
