As a followup to the football cover I discussed last time, I decided to introduce a few other lighting setups that are very similar in nature. Every year we run a Coca-Cola ad in the back inside cover of every yearbook. I asked Coca-Cola - the athletic department's biggest corporate sponsor - if we could use their Powerade logo for these ads. The logo is featured throughout our signage around campus and is a Coke trademark. I thought it would definitely match the theme better and the Coke logo is already featured on our inner cover as well. They declined. So the soda beverage is still used here in conjunction with these images of athletes in action- oh, well.
In years past, the designers simply used an action shot from the season for this page, but as usual, I wanted to take it a step further. Last year I started selecting a single player that would be used for the advertisement. This year, I wanted to do a mock action shot with the same gritty look that I had used on the football cover. I decided to use this look on the covers and on the Coke ads to give it a bit of an edge and to keep the books somewhat unified in design.
I've included two different shots here just for fun. The image above is for the men's soccer book and features senior goalkeeper Jeffery Preston. As with the football cover and the women's ad to follow, the subject and background were shot separately. Jeff was shot in the corner of the gym on campus. Because it was exam week and I had other deadlines that I was trying to meet, we needed the shoot to be fast and simple.
I set up a folding mat on the floor for cushioning just in case he lost his balance. For this shot I really wanted the subject to be foreshortened with the action coming toward the viewer. To accomplish this, I had him part his feet and then, on his tip-toes, lean out toward the camera. Think of a wide receiver trying to keep his feet in bounds while leaning out over the sidelines to make the catch. The shot's wide angle helps accentuate the effect. By shooting at 24mm on a full frame camera, but moving in close, the effect is a bit more pronounced. Of course shooting with a fish-eye lens would have made it even more pronounced, but I didn't really want to take it that far. An aperture of f/8 still left some depth to the image as well. I am shooting with a D700 at 1/2ooth of a second and I am doing so on a short ladder to give myself some elevation.
As you can see from the diagram below, the setup is really simple and portable. I lit Jeff with three strobes, all portable Nikon speedlights (forgive the illustrations - I did not have time to redesign the flash heads today :). The front light was actually more of a fill light. As with the football shoot, the strongest light is coming from behind and to the sides of the subject to give a harder look, creating more contrast. The fill light is an SB-800 shot through a Westcott translucent umbrella. The light that is doing most of the work here is actually behind Jeff. I set an SB-25 in a silver Westcott umbrella and let it illuminate him along the entire back side and spilling to the front. The final light is working to fill the back of the subject. This is another silver Westcott umbrella with an SB-28 aimed inside. The power levels were not recorded. I will try to log this information in the future.
The image below is the RAW image as shot in camera. Because these shots were literally setup, clicked and taken down in under 10 minutes, I did not fiddle with setting up a backdrop, though the brick wall did help out a bit. I backed the ladder up a tad for this image which was, I believe, the second or third to last taken. The foreshortening effect was working against me as the subject was just in the limits of the minimum focusing distance on the 24-70mm f/2.8 and we were having a hard time getting the whole body in frame as needed - his face and hands kept blocking out his legs and feet.
The final image is a composite just like the football cover (see previous post). The field was shot on an overcast day at an elevated height as well to match the scene. The images were treated with sharpening, contrast and saturation adjustments and more to taste.
The women's ad below was designed in the exact same way. The only difference was this was shot in the studio upstairs and I used two strobes in softboxes instead of umbrellas.
As you can see there is nothing fancy about the setup. I used a large softbox with the internal baffle only, and positioned it horizontally to fill the entire front of senior Leslie Hudgens. I feathered the light downward a bit as well. The back light is in a small softbox and is feathering her along the back. Both were Alien Bees 800s. This was shot with a D300 set at f/8 and 1/250th of a second.
The ball was photographed separately and the speed lines were added in Photoshop. Here's something you might have noticed - the same ball and blur is used in both images. Why reinvent the wheel?
Below is the RAW image as shot in camera. As you can see, I didn't even take the time to set up a seamless. Again, these were setup, shot and packed up very quickly. If I had more time and fewer projects, I would definitely love to try out some other ideas, but for now, this will work.
I hope you found this helpful. I have posted an image for tomorrow's (hopefully) post for you to look at. That one is more about Photoshop and careful planning. The shooting was the easy part really. As we progress I promise to explore different images and genres. Right now, these are the ones that people have asked about, so I'm starting there.
Until next time, be safe and happy shooting.
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