If you’ve been a follower of this blog you know I’m now on staff with a former client, working at the convergence of internet, photography, and video. I still find time to do my own personal photography, though, and a recent shoot involving some Facebook friends was a fun and educational experience, one worth sharing on the blog, I thought.

There were two main reasons I wanted to photograph Facebook friends.

1. Photo aspect – I felt like photographing portraits and needed a few subjects. Being connected to literally hundreds of people on Facebook provided a great resource, one worth tapping into.
2. Social aspect – the word “friends.” Do we define friends differently in this day and age of rampant social media? What is a friend?

Putting out the call

First, a web page describing the shoot was created and posted on my personal blog. Over the next two weeks I linked to this page a couple of times through Facebook updates. Some interested responses came in immediately and some didn’t filter in until a day or so before the shoot. And, of course, there were the “can you do this another time/special request” questions, but the premise was really simple: I had the studio for one weekend only and the photos would be of Facebook friends, only.

I decided to cap the number of sittings at ten and scheduled them fairly evenly over the two-day period. It turned out to be a good number, large enough to satisfy the intentions of the shoot but small enough that we could take our time.

Photo/technical aspect

Wouldn’t you know, the week prior to the shoot turned out to be exceedingly busy, with not much time to think about the set up. On Saturday morning I headed to Daylight Photo with only a loose plan in mind.

My initial intention was to bounce a bunch of light into a side wall and not worry about the lighting too much – just take what it gives me and work mainly on the interaction with the subject. When I entered the studio (after a few month absence) I was reminded that the only solid side wall was covered with cabinets and other obstructions. That’s not good for bouncing light. Time for Plan B.

Out came the strobes and a couple of soft boxes, a 24” x 36” medium for the main light and an 18” x 24” small for the hair light, set directly opposite one another. Maybe I’d play with the lighting a bit more than originally intended, I decided.

The plan for working with the subjects was simple – give them a starting point and then let them be themselves. There were three basic set ups during the shoot: a stool to sit on, standing, and sitting at a table, and a wide roll of gray seamless paper served as the backdrop.

Each shoot was scheduled for half an hour but probably ended up taking 45-60 minutes. Once a subject arrived we’d talk for quite a while, then move through the basic set ups rather quickly, spending 5-10 minutes on each. Our conversations continued all the way out into the parking lot after each shoot was finished.

As far as technical details go, most of the fiddling was done with a large (4′ x 8′) foamcore panel on the shadow side of each subject. This is all pretty standard stuff for studio photographers: black foamcore was used to subtract light, making dark, dramatic shadows, and white foamcare filled in light and softened shadows. I played with both on each subject and am glad that I did. Soft light can be beautiful but when does it become too soft (and all definition is lost)? And at what point does hard light go from strikingly beautiful to simply harsh? I have a good sense for what works best but this allowed me to push those edges on a number of subjects, in a no-pressure situation. And if we’re not continually pushing the boundaries of what we know (or what we think we know), then we’re not learning, are we?

The camera was a Nikon D90, with either the 18-70 Nikkor zoom or the Nikkor 85mm f1.8. The 18-70 was once a standard Nikon kit lens but it remains one of my personal favorites. I find it very versatile for general photography but there’s noticeable distortion at each end of the range, so it’s not ideal for architectural subjects.

Most shots were done with the lens stopped down to f14-16, a very small aperture. Yes, shooting wide open can be beautiful but I prefer that look with natural light. When shooting in the studio with strobe power I prefer the safe route, stopping far down so depth of field isn’t a concern. I know the lenses are sharp at that aperture and there’s little risk of something important falling out of focus, so no matter how fast we’re shooting or changing things up, focus is a non-issue.

All post-production was done in Lightroom 3, which handles 95% of my image making workload (a free trial download is available from Adobe). A minimum of retouching is done  to retain a natural look.

That’s it for the technical stuff. As far as studio shoots go, it was a fairly typical two-light set up with minimal post-production.

Next up: in next Tuesday’s post we’ll look at the social aspects of the shoot and my search to define “friend” in the age of social media.

- Jim T.

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An earlier prophotolife post discussed why you should design a custom logo for you and your photo business. Whether you have a full-time business or a part-time photo blog, a well designed logo conveys professionalism and sets you apart from the masses. I’m really happy with the prophotolife logo, which was designed by one of this site’s affiliates: The Logo Company. When I’m pleased with a product or service I like to let people know about it.

With a number of options available for logo design, how did I choose to use an online service? There were a few options available. I could ask one of my friends in design to do it, they would probably do it for free or as a trade of services. But, to be honest, they’re all pretty busy and this would just add to their pile.

I could try to find a student designer, it’s great to support students. Trying to work through this with someone less experienced would probably add to my pile, though. I just wanted it to be relatively quick and easy.

Then there was The Logo Company, who reported to be affordable, easy to work with and fast. When I first saw their claims of designing a logo for $149 with multiple design choices and a quick turnaround, it sounded ideal for what I needed. So I checked out their website for samples and was impressed with the diversity and quality. The many positive testimonials on their site also backed up their claims.

The order and fulfillment process was simple. I filled out an online questionnaire about the blog and shared basic design ideas and my preferred colors. Then, as just another customer, I paid them my $149 before logging off (in the spirit of full disclosure, since they are a sponsor of this site a percentage of that will be paid back to this website at some point). In three days they promised to email a minimum of three company logo design ideas to choose from. To my surprise I received eight(!) different design choices via email on the third day:

I immediately responded to the far right logo on the top row. The mouse and film strip icon pulled together modern and conventional photo and computer technologies…it just said “photo blog”. Plus the text was modern, clean and easy to read, things I had requested. The color did need a little adjustment, I felt, so the logo was sent back and in three days another version was sent for my approval. It was right on.

Later that day the finished design was delivered as a zip file in eight file formats for various uses. They ranged from a large tiff RGB file to CMYK eps to a variety of png and jpg sizes for the web. There was even a file with a transparent background and one already converted to grayscale. While I can resize images if I want, it’s been nice to just pluck one from the folder for whatever use is needed. For the average consumer without graphics capabilities this greatly simplifies things.

It should be obvious I’m happy with the logo, I feel it’s professional and says just what I had hoped. The experience was also just as promised: affordable, quick and easy. And, because they want customer satisfaction, there’s even a money back guarantee.

If it’s time for you to upgrade your professionalism and image with a new logo design, I hope you’ll take a closer look at the offerings available from The Logo Company. As mentioned earlier, they are a sponsor of this website and accessing them through the banner at left will benefit prophotolife, as well. Any revenue generated by our affiliates helps keep the blog online…

- Jim T.