We’re doing corporate headshots today and this is the gear, there’s some reflectors in there so grid spots, background stand and a whole bunch of lights in there, camera gear, light stands and a couple of umbrellas and four foot super light.

So, this is the room for the executive portraits. It’s really a conference room. It has a giant table depth center exactly what you don’t want the table to be but there is this little open area here which is where we’re going to try to do our shots. And there’s not really enough room to set up the background paper properly but we’ve clamped it on so that it will stay and we’re just about to put up some lights in this area.

So, here is the lighting for our executive portraits. Our subject is very close to the background maybe about a foot away and the main lighting for our subject is two umbrellas, one is here, and one is here. We’ve put this close as possible to the subject to keep the light soft. Obviously, the closer the lighting is to the subject, the softer the lighting will be and that’s what we want on this time of executive portrait.

Now, we’ve also added a light behind the white paper. This is actually going to shine through our white seamless and help to keep the seamless paper white so it doesn’t get too flat and muddy.

So, when you see a shot like this obviously, the technical part really isn’t that difficult, what really comes down to you is your rapport with the people that you’re shooting. And turn your right shoulder to me please, that’s great, that’s correct, it’s okay. There’s no test today so it’s all right.

You need to make some kind of connection with 10 to 12 people in a single day then make them all feel comfortable enough to pose and to come out of their skin a little bit, to smile and be relaxed on camera. And you need to do that in the span of about five minutes or so. That’s really the most important thing on this kind of shot because anybody can set up the lighting technically but not everybody can get that rapport and make this people feel comfortable and producing good shots so that’s really what you want to work on here.

[Demonstration]

Light and set up, there’s one light behind the artist, there’s another light behind the artist. Artist is standing right here and then we have our main light here. So it’s three lights one in the front and one behind and another behind.

[Demonstration]

On my way to Madison Square Garden for the Bow Wow in Chris Brown show, one of the ways I like to travel is using a bag like this rather than a traditional camera bag. This bag is holding or hiding, I should say a D3 with the new 24-70mm lens and that’s’ probably about what $6,000.00 maybe $7,000.00 with the gear. Now, put it in this little bag here, just wear it on my shoulder and no one will realize what I’m walking down the street with and this other body the D2x with the 70-200 will go inside this bag and when you take it, the camera out of the bag it, you have a small bag that you can just fold up and stick it in a backpack and put in your jacket pocket.

That way the entire night, you don’t have to worry about keeping track of a camera bag trying to navigate it to a crowd or navigate it to other photographers. And you don’t have to worry about so by stealing that bag because you can’t watch the bag while you’re shooting.

[Demonstration]