Hello everyone, I've been working on headshots part-time for a couple of years now and have even had a few repeat clients. While I do the occasional studio shoot, I have always preferred location work, and working with natural light (augmented by reflectors and a bit of kicker flash). I work alone and like to be mobile, so while I absolutely dig the cinematic look the Dylan creates, managing the gear that is involved (most of which I own already) seems too cumbersome on location. I'd love to learn more about how I can manage that aspect of shooting, as I feel that I can get the expressions and other stuff from my clients quite well now.
So that is my question, how does one utilise lighting gear (eg like Dylan uses in his tutorial) on location, while working without assistants, and staying mobile to use more than one location during a session?
Here are a couple from recent shoots.
Gear is gear. You want 1 light, you need 1 light stand. You want 2 lights, you need 2 light stands. You want modifiers, you need to carry them. You want wind protection, you carry sand bags. I'm also working alone and I've used to the fact it needs time and gear.
Your reflector and kicker flash is way far from "cumbersome".
The idea for using gear outside is obviously to keep it as simple as possible....but the other key is to find a place where you don't need to move....if the focus is headshots and you just need a blurry background, then you can change the backgrounds by simply keeping the client in one place and rotating around them, add that to the fact that a background is going to look very different at very different times of day and year. Most of my shots in NYC were all shot in the same place on my roof I just rotated around them for different backgrounds, and different times of day and year gave different results...in the end it's about the expression first and foremost, so keep it easy and find a place where you can stay put! I also use a Rock N Roller Multicart for moving gear around to make it easier
Great advice Dylan. I bought your Tutorial here, but must admit I've only watched the PP sections so far...which were also very helpful! Do you go through how to choose locations in the shooting parts of the tutorial?
So glad you are enjoying the tutorial! Yes we talk about how to choose different backgrounds....sunny days produce the most dynamic ones, but really the best way is to walk around with your lens out of focus and take blurry shots. Focus about 4 feet in front of you and then just start snapping away. Things that are reflective tend to look cool, parking lots, sides of buildings with glass, etc etc, the specular highlights they create can make for interesting backgrounds...but also look for angular sun on sunny days think of the sun as your background light
Looks like I'll need to watch the rest of the videos asap, and then challenge myself to find some new locations where I can get multiple looks at one spot. Thanks for your input Dylan.
to be fair we don't go into super great depth about it mainly because it's kind of in the eye of the beholder....it also allows you to have fun looking at a blurry world LOL but I believe the first outdoor chapter shooting with Leva we talk about it and we bring it up a handful of other times....but yeah check sunny area's, and area's close to you so you can minimize how much you have to move