This picture of my stepfather was taken when I first learned about lighting and OCF at a local college. I brought my Fujifilm XT-1 and set up the lighting on the stick at my parents' living room to practice. My dad, I called him dad, literally just returned home from work. After retirement, he worked part time as a guest service team member at the Texas Ranger stadium. He was one of those guys that helped point you to your seat. He still had his bright neon yellow uniform on. Dad quickly picked up his favorite fedora hat with the red feather and his sport coat to model for me. Six months later, he died in a tragic accident (flood) and we used this image as his memorial photo. We feel like this image captures everything that is him, his demeanor, the job that he loved and things that he adored (fedora hat & sport coat). I'm grateful to have been able to capture this. It means a lot to our family. I just want to submit this to celebrate him. I've taken a lot of portraits since then, but this remains my absolute favorite.
How you captured the image
- It wasn't a complicated shot. I just had him stand at an angle and looked straight at me. OCF with a large soft box on my left.
Any post-processing involved
- Very minimal as I thought the lighting was good. The brown background behind him was the living room curtain, I duplicated the right side so it looks uniform. My mom had multiple panels curtain so the floral piece appeared on the right of the frame. I should have closed all the curtains before taken the picture but hey, rookie mistake.
Where it was taken
- In my parents' living room.
Any challenges you faced
- No. We were just having fun and they cooperated to let me practice.