Behind the Scenes – Portland Spaces Cover Shoot

Finally had a moment to breath and post this! It’s been a really busy year. I’ll have more on what’s been happening soon. But first, I’d like to present my first cover feature for Portland Spaces!

This was my biggest project to date with Portland Spaces. I shot nine locations over six days to fill twenty-three pages of the October/November 2008 issue. It was a really a great experience to shoot so many different types of work spaces, yet keep a consistent theme going throughout. Working closely with Jason Blackheart, Portland Spaces’ Art Director, really helped to pull it all together.

Making this cover shot happen was almost too easy. Linda’s home office pavilion provided a great backdrop for the type considerations of the cover layout. The day was pretty sunny, so I used a strobe inside her studio to match the outdoor light. I really wanted the shot to come out natural looking. The trick was to have the light source coming from the same angle of the sun.

Here are some behind the scenes photos shot by my trusty assistant, Dan McLaughlin.

We really didn’t have a lot of time to get this shot. The sun was creeping around an rising up the side wall. If it got to high, it would have been too hot for the shot.

I shot this with a Canon 5D, 45mm TSE, and tethered to a Windows machine. Jason Blackheart is on the left.

Shooting tethered outside? Make sure your laptop battery is charged.

We shot a lot of different versions of Linda’s son walking. Here, I want him to act like he was running and then start moving on my signal. That way I could position him exactly where I wanted him, yet still get the blurry effect. The end shot was actually a composite of three different frames.

It’s funny how a laptop has become the new Polaroid.

Here Jason and I are talking about options the shot for the cover.

When the Art Director smiles, you know you’ve got it in the bag.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 10:41 am and is filed under Photo Technique and tagged with behind the scenes, editorial, Ides of May, Lincoln Barbour, magazine, photo shoot, photography, Portland, Portland Spaces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.